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PAEALLEL LIVES. 



PAEALLEL LIVES 



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ANCIENT AND MODERN HEROES 



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EPAMINONDAS 1 fGUSTA^US ADOLPHUS, 

PHILIP OF MACEDONJ IFREDERIC THE GREAT. 



BY 



CHARLES DUKE YONGE, 

AtrxHoa OF A "history of Ejf gland," etc 



LONDON : 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 

1858. 



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LONDON : 
BBADBURT AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



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NOTICE. 



The chief authorities for the following sketches, 
besides the classical authors, are Thirlwall's and 
Grote's Histories of Greece, Harte's Life of Gus- 
tavus Adolphus, Coxe's House of Austria, Schiller's 
Thirty Years' War, Lord Dover's Life of Frederic 
the Great, Campbell's Life of Frederic the Great, 
Frederic's own Memoirs, the Memoirs of the 
Margravine of Bayreuth, and the Memoirs of the 
Prince de Ligne. 



CONTENTS. . 



LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 



PAGE 

The Value of Comparative 
History .... 3 

The Family of Epaminondas 5 

He became a Pupil of Lysis . 6 

And a Friend of Pelopidas 6 

Political importance and 

power of Thebes . . 7 

Epaminondas serves in the 
Theban army against Man- 
tinea .... 7 

Saves the life of Pelopidas . 8 

Abstains from aiding him in 
the recovery of the Cadmea 8 

Influences Thebes to join 
Athens against Sparta . 9 

Persuades the other Boeotian 
cities to join Thebes . 9 

Is sent to Sparta to negotiate 
for peace . . .10 

Distinguishes himself by his 
eloquence ♦ . .11 

Defeats the Lacedaemonians 
at Leuctra . . .12 

Fortitude of the Lacedaemo- 
nians . . . .19 

He invades Peloponnesus and 
restores the Messenians to 
their country . .20 



PAGE 

Threatens Lacedsemon . 21 

Is impeached for an illegal 
retention of office . . 22 

Invades Peloponnesus to gain 
over Sicyon to the Theban 
Alliance . . .23 

Delivers Pelopidas from Alex- 
ander of Pherse . .24 

Goes as Ambassador to Ar- 
cadia . . . .25 

Persuades Thebes to build a 
Fleet, and visits the Ionian 
Coast .... 27 

Refuses the presents of Ar- 
taxerxes . . .28 

The Thebans destroy Orcho- 
menos . . . .29 

Epaminondas defends the 
arrest of the Arcadians . 31 

Invades Peloponnesus . .33 

Attempts to surprise Lace- 
dsemon . . . .34 

The valour of Isidas . .35 

Attempts to surprise Man- 
tinea . . . .37 

Battle of Mantinea, and death 
of Epaminondas . . 38 



CONTENTS. 



LIFE OF GUSTAYUS ADOLPHUS. 



PAGE 

Pedigree and birth of Gus- 
tavus . . . .43 

He succeeds to the throne of 
Sweden . . . .44 

Is attacked by Christian IV. 
of Denmark . . .45 

Makes Oxenstiern his Minis- 
ter .... 46 

Encourages the University of 
Upsal . . . .46 

Defeats the Russians . .47 

Compels Sigismund of Poland 
to sue for peace . .47 

Improves the Swedish navy 48 

Remodels the Swedish army 48 

Makes a firm alliance with 
Christian . . .49 

Marries Maria Eleanora of 
Brandenburg . , .49 

Invades Poland, takes Riga, 
and again compels Sigis- 
mund to sue for peace . 50 

Excites the admiration of 
Spinola . . .50 

Improves the internal condi- 
tion of Sweden . .51 

Annexes Livonia to Sweden . 51 

Subdues Polish Prussia . 62 

Protects the persecuted Pro- 
testants . . . .54 

Suppresses Duelling . .55 

Is wounded at Dantzic . 56 

Sends a reinforcement to 

Stralsund . . .57 

Miseries caused by the Thirty 
Years' War . . .59 

Arnheim attacks Gustavus . 60 



PAGE 

Gustavus makes peace with 

Poland . . . .61 
Singular political and reli- 
gious complications of the 
War - ... 62 
Gustavus invades Germany . 63 
Appoints a Regency during 

his absence from Sweden . 64 
Declares Christina his suc- 
cessor . . . .65 
The good discipline of the 

Swedish army . .67 

The German Generals despise 

Gustavus . . .68 
He offers peace . . * 70 
Tilly succeeds Wallestein as 
the German Commander- 
in-Chief ... 72 
Gustavus gains the alliance 
of France, England, and 
Holland .... 73 
Tilly takes New Brandenburgh 74 
Gustavus takes Frankfort- 

on-the-Oder . . .74 

And Landsperg . . .75 
Tilly takes Magdeburg, and 
destroys it with terrible 
barbarity . . .76 
Gustavus pursues Tilly . 79 
Tilly takes Leipsic . .80 
Gustavus defeats him at 

Breitenfeldt . . .81 
Marches towards the Rhine . 85 
Crosses it and takes May- 

ence . . . .87 
Richelieu becomes suspicious 
of him . . . . 87 



CONTENTS. 



Gustavus marches towards 




Civilities between Gustavus 




tlie Danube . 


88 


and Wallestein 


97 


Defeats Tilly and takes Augs- 




Gustavus retires into Bavaria 


98 


burg .... 


89 


Wallestein pursues him 


100 


Takes Munich . . . 


90 


Gustavus parts from his 




Wallestein resumes the com- 




Queen . . . . 


100 


mand of the Grerman armies 


91 


His popularity in Saxony 


101 


Vladislaus succeeds Sigismund 




He encamps at Naumburg . 


101 


as King of Poland . 


92 


Attempts to surprise Walles- 




Gustavus retires to Nurem- 




tein at Lutzen 


103 


burg .... 


93 


Battle of Lutzen 


104 


Wallestein entrenches himself 




Death of Gustavus 


107 


at Furt 


94 


A Monument is raised to 




Great distress in Gustavus's 




his memory by Charles 




camp .... 


96 


John XIV. . 


107 



PAEALLEL BETWEEIS" EPAMINOIn'DAS AND GUSTAYUS. 



PAGE 

Both military Reformers . lOS 
Both men of great humanity 109 
Both Orators and Statesmen 110 
Both disinterested Patriots . 112 



PAGE 

Schiller not justified in im- 
puting excessive personal 
ambition to Gustavus . 113 



LIFE OF PHILIP, KING OF MACEDON. 



PAGE 

Early Kings of Macedon . 117 
Youth and Education of Philip 118 
He seizes the throne, first as 

Regent, then as King . 120 
The lUyrians prepare to in- 
vade Macedonia . .120 
Philip's great abilities . 121 

He tries to conciliate the 

Athenians . . .122 
He subdues the lUyrians . 123 



PAGE 

Reforms his army . .125 
Takes Amphipolis and Pydna 126 
Aids the Olynthians to re- 
cover Potidsea . .127 
Marries Olympias, a princess 

of Epirus . . .128 
Alexander the Great is born . 128 
Philip cultivates his navy . 129 
The Sacred War . . .131 
Philip takes Methone . .132 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

He defeats Phayllus and 

Lycophron . . .133 
Onomarclius defeats PMlip . 133 
Philip defeats Onomarchus . 133 
His fleet scours the ^gean . 134 
He invades Thrace . .135 
The rise of Demosthenes . 135 
Philip attacks Olynthus . 136 
He takes and destroys it .138 
Encourages the Euboeans in 

revolt . . . .139 
Celebrates magnificent games 

at Dium . . .140 

Improves the internal con- 
dition of Macedon , . 1 40 
Entrusts Alexander to Aris- 
totle as his tutor . .141 
Philip's general moderation 

and equity . . .143 
He makes peace with Athens 147 
He subdues Cersobleptes . 148 
He subdues Phocis . .150 
Obtains the Phocian vote in 

the Amphictyonic Council. 151 
Isocrates urges him to invade 

Asia .... 153 
Demosthenes' Second Philip- 
pic . . . . 155 
Philip divides Thessaly into 

tetrarchies . . .156 
He overruns Thrace . .159 
The Athenians send a force 
into Euboea . . .160 



PAGE 

Demosthenes goes on an em- 
bassy to Byzantium . .160 

Philip takes Selymbria and 
ravages the Chersonese . 161 

He lays siege to Perinthus . 162 

Sends a letter to the Athe- 
nians .... 162 

Fails at Perinthus and at 
Byzantium . . .164 

Attacks the Scythians . .164 

Is wounded in a battle with 
theTriballi . . .165 

The Second Sacred War .165 

He threatens to invade At- 
tica . . . .166 

Demosthenes rouses the Athe- 
nians, and makes an alli- 
ance with Thebes . .167 

Philip defeats the Athenians 
and Thebans at Chseronea 168 

Alexander's eminent bravery 169 

Philip's generosity to the 
Athenians . . .170 

In a congress at Corinth the 
Greeks name him Com- 
mander - in - Chief against 
Persia . . . .171 

He invades and ravages La- 
conia .... 171 

His quarrels with Olympias 
and Alexander . .172 

He is murdered at ^gse . .175 



CONTENTS. 



LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



PAGE 

Previous kings of Prussia . 177 
Unnatural cruelty of Frederic 

WiUiam . . .179 

Early tastes of Frederic . 181 
The King tries him by court 

martial, and imprisons him 

at Custrin . . .182 
Frederic marries the Princess 

ofBevern . . .183 
He succeeds to the throne on 

the death of his father . 186 
His sudden devotion to busi- 
ness .... 186 
He occupies himself with the 

internal improvement of his 

dominions . . .187 
The Emperor Charles VI. dies 188 
Frederic claims Silesia, and 

attacks Maria Teresa . 189 
He invades Silesia, and takes 

Breslau . . , .191 
The battle of Molwitz . .192 
Maria Teresa cedes Lower 

Silesia to Frederic . .193 
She convokes the states of 

Hungary . . .193 

Frederic breaks the truce, and 

invades Moravia . .194 
Defeats Prince Charles, and 

gains the rest of the Silesia 195 
Makes a treaty with George 

II. of England . . 195 

Battle of Dettingen . . .195 
Voltaire is sent to Frederic 

as a French envoy . .195 
Frederic renews the war with 

the Empress . . .196 



PAGE 

Takes Prague, but succeeds 
in no other point . .196 

He applies to England for aid 
without success . .197 

Maria Teresa concludes a, 
treaty with England and 
Saxony .... 198 

The battle of Hohenfriedberg 199 

Francis of Lorraine is elected 
Emperor . . .200 

The battle of Sorr . . . 200 

Peace is made at Dresden . 201 

Frederic receives the name of 
' ' The Great," on his return 
to Berlin . . .201 

His labours for the improve- 
ment of his kingdom . 202 

He establishes religious tole- 
ration and the freedom of 
the press . . .205 

Mitigates the severity of the 
law ... . 207 

Patronises the fine arts . .209 

Establishes an Academy of 
Science . . . .209 

Invites Voltaire to Prussia . 209 

Devotes himself greatly to 
literary compositions . 212 

Quarrels with Voltaire . .214 

Encourages trade and com- 
merce . . . .217 

The Empress forms an alliance 
with Russia and France . 218 

The abilities of Prince Kau- 
nitz . . . .220 

Frederic again declares war 
against the Empress . 223 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

He takes Dresden . . 223 

The battle of Lowositz . . 224 
He makes a treaty with 

England . . .225 

Defeats the Anstrians at 

Prague . . , .226 
The battle of Kolin . . 227 
Frederic retreats into Saxony 229 
Berlin is compelled to ransom 

itself . . . .230 
The battle of Rosbach . . 231 
The battle of Leuthen . . 233 
Frederic makes a new treaty 

with England . . .234 
Battle of Zomdof . . . 235 
Frederic is surprised and 

defeated at Hochkirch . 236 
Battle of Kunersdof . . 238 
Frederic thinks of suicide . 240 
Daun gains great advantages 

over his lieutenants . .241 



PAGE 

Great distress in Prussia . 242 
The battle of Leignitz . . 244 
The battle of Torgau . . 244 
On the death of George II. 

England makes peace with 

France .... 245 
The war terminated February, 
• 1763, by a peace signed at 

Hubertsburg . . .246 
Great distress in Prussia . 247 
The Grand Seignor sends an 

embassy to Berlin . .249 
Frederic's conferences with 

the Emperor . . . 251 
He proposes to Joseph the 

partition of Poland . . 252 
He again declares war against 

Austria on the subject of 

the Bavarian succession . 257 
Peace is restored . .258 

Frederic dies, 1786 . . 260 



PARALLEL BETWEEN PHILIP AND EREDERIC. 



PAGE 

Their fondness for war . 261 

Philip's attacks on Thrace re- 
semble Frederic's on Silesia 262 
Both men of great military 

skiU . . . .262 
And of fortitude and perse- 
verance . . . .264 
Both men of politic humanity 264 
Both able diplomatists and 
statesmen . . .265 



PAGE 

Both wise rulers .... 266 

Both accomplished and learned 
men . . . .267 

Each greatly increased the 
power of his country . 268 

Philip a religious man, Fre- 
deric an infidel . .269 

Frederic the greater sovereign, 
Philip the better man . 269 



EPAMINONDAS, THE THEBAN, 



GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 



/ 



THE 

LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS, 

THE THEBAN. 



The ample learning and large views with which 
both the history of ancient times and that of our 
own country have of late been written, afford the 
modern reader facilities for applying himself to such 
studies in a right spirit and a profitable manner, 
which were hardly attainable by a former generation. 
However, the field of what may be called compara- 
tive history, bringing ancient and modern times 
and nations into juxtaposition, is still almost un- 
touched ; though it would appear to be not the 
least beneficial, and certainly not the least enter- 
taining, portion of the subject ; while the easiest 
and most attractive method of cultivating it may 
probably be that of examining and comparing the 
lives of some of those illustrious men of both eras, 
whose great tdeeds, or, it may be, whose eminent 
position has kept them before the eyes of all 
succeeding ages. I purpose therefore to set before 

B 2 



4 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

the reader, with as much brevity as possible, short 
biographical sketches of some of the greatest of the 
heroes of Greece and Borne, and an equal number 
of those of modern times, drawing a parallel between 
each pair in imitation of the plan so successfully 
executed by Plutarch. 

It will not be expected that the resemblances will 
generally, or indeed often, be very minute; there 
may even be cases when the comparison instituted 
will seem one of contrast rather than of similarity. 
The total difference of feelings and customs which 
has arisen among all nations since the Christian 
Era ; the infinitely more extended field of action 
which is spread before the modern statesman, than 
that which was conceived by the wisest and most 
far-sighted of the ancients; the magnitude of modern 
kingdoms, and the complicated interests involved 
and dealt with in modern politics, as compared 
with the diminutive size and narrow views of the 
ancient republics of Greece, and of Rome in its 
earlier history ; and, in later times, the absence of 
any rival to the Imperial City, form a combination 
of circumstances which could not fail to mark the 
career of men of naturally the most similar cha- 
racters with great points of difference. But still, 
as the human heart is the same in all ages, and in 
all climes, it is ever swayed by similar passions, 
and obedient to the impulse of similar motives, 
however the changes of religion and manners may 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 5 

have contributed to vary the professions under 
which it is attempted to disguise them ; and as 
these unaltered passions and motives will at all 
times and under all circumstances produce nearly 
similar effects, there is no age and no country 
which has been softened by any kind of civilisation, 
which may not in its degree furnish lessons of 
great value to the young and inexperienced, and 
sometimes perhaps not wholly beneath the notice 
of the philosopher or the statesman. It cannot 
but be profitable as well as pleasing to dwell on 
the contemplation of virtuous principles and noble 
actions ; and, though not equally delightful, it may 
be even more instructive occasionally to mark and 
draw warnings from the errors, or follies, or vices 
which may have marred the perfection of that 
example, which might otherwise have justly been 
held up as a model for undeviating imitation. 

The early life of Epaminondas is involved in 
great obscurity ; that, though poor, he was de- 
scended from one of the most ancient and illus- 
trious families * in Thebes we know, but of the 
time of his birth we are ignorant ; and, though we 
are told that his father's name was Polymnis, 

* He was one of the Sparti, so called from o-ireipca, to sow, as those 
distinguished by this appellation were believed to be descended from 
one of the five heroes born of the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, who 
survived their" fratricidal contest. 



b THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

the researches of his admirers in the very next 
generation did not enable them to ascertain that 
of his other parent. One fact only has come down 
to us with respect to his earlier years, namely, 
that he was a pupil of Lysis, a Tarentine philo- 
sopher, of the school of Pythagoras, who had 
fixed his residence at Thebes ; and who, not only 
stored the mind of his pupil with precepts of 
wisdom and virtue, but was in a certain degree 
his master in oratory, and probably also in those 
lighter accomplishments which the ancients did not 
disdain to consider important even to the leaders 
of a nation ; so that Cicero (while extolling Epa- 
minondas as the first man of all Greece) does not 
think it unworthy of remark that he played admi- 
rably on the lyre, while Themistocles had been 
lightly esteemed in some quarters because of his 
deficiency in that art. He likewise cultivated the 
Acquaintance of other philosophers, such as Simmias 
and Spintharus, who had been companions of 
Socrates, and, contented in his poverty, would 
probably have been led by his natural inclinations 
to devote himself wholly to literary studies, if, 
fortunately for his country, his friendship for 
Pelopidas had not called him to the more active 
business of life, and made him take, in the first 
instance a share, and afterwards the lead in the 
direction of those events which for a short time 
raised his native city to the supremacy over Greece. 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 7 

In spite of the fertility of its soil, and of its 
many advantages of situation, Thebes had never 
been possessed of such power or of such reputation 
as to be able to dispute the ascendancy with Athens 
or Sparta; and it was only the friendship of the 
latter city, desirous to raise up an enemy to Athens 
in her own neighbourhood, that had raised her to 
a level in the Grecian community with the states 
which may be looked upon as holding the second 
rank ; — Corinth and Argos. At the time of the 
Persian invasion she had thrown herself cordially 
into the arms of the Barbarians, and time had not 
wholly effaced the recollection of this treachery to 
the common cause. By the fall of Athens, at the 
end of the Peloponnesian war, her importance had 
been increased, but her power had again received 
a severe blow by the peace of Antalcidas, which 
compelled her to acknowledge the independence 
of the other Boeotian cities, and by the re-building 
of Platsea, and the restoration of the ancient citizens 
of that gallant little town to their restored country. 

Epaminondas was probably about five-and-thirty 
years of age when the Thebans sent an army to 
co-operate with the Lacedaemonians in the war 
upon Mantinea. In the battle, which took place 
under the walls of that city, his friend Pelopidas, 
a man of equally noble birth with himself, but 
more amply endowed with the gifts of fortune, fell 
covered with wounds ; Epaminondas, however. 



O THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

though he believed that he was dead, would not 
desert him, but, in spite of severe wounds which 
he had himself received, stood over him, and fought 
for his body and his arms, (the preservation of 
which was an object of great importance in the eyes 
of every Greek,) and, when his efforts had been 
crowned with success, was rewarded by finding that 
he had preserved his life also. When, on the 
treacherous seizure of the Cadmea, the citadel of 
Thebes, by the Lacedaemonians, Pelopidas with 
many more of the leading citizens fled to Athens, 
Epaminondas remained behind, but maintained a 
correspondence with the refugees till the time ar- 
rived for rising against their oppressors. In three 
years the tyranny of the Lacedaemonian governors 
Leontiades and Archias had excited an universal 
feeling of impatience and indignation in the heart 
of every Theban ; and, finding that, though Athens 
afforded them a safe asylum, it was not inclined to 
provoke a quarrel with Sparta by openly assisting 
in the expulsion of the Spartan garrison, Pelopidas 
resolved to undertake the enterprise without waiting 
for foreign assistance, of which he had learnt to 
despair ; and with a small body of friends effected 
his entrance into Thebes, and put the Spartan chiefs 
to death. To Grecian notions such an action 
appeared a deed of gallant daring rather than one of 
private assassination ; but still Epaminondas refused 
to be concerned in it, or in any act which was 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 9 

likely to lead to shedding the blood of his own 
innocent fellow-citizens. When, however, the tyrants 
were slain, and the people were convened to meet 
the champions of their freedom, he was one of the 
first who appeared in arms to support his friends, 
and to aid them in compelling the Spartan garrison 
to capitulate ; and, when the course of succeeding 
events produced a rupture between Sparta and 
Athens, he promoted the accession of Thebes to the 
formidable confederacy by the aid of which the city 
of Pallas was preparing to avenge herself on her 
conqueror. Doubtless he bore his share in the 
repulse of Agesilaus in the ensuing year by the 
novel tactics of the Athenian Chabrias, and in the 
successful efforts to which it was owing, that, though 
for several years the Spartans, with their Pelopo- 
nesian allies, regularly invaded Boeotia, the Theban 
territory suffered little or nothing from these un- 
ceasing hostilities, while the Spartans sustained 
two or three decided defeats : doubtless it was in no 
slight degree owing to his moderation and wisdom, 
aided by a more persuasive eloquence than had ever 
before flowed from Theban lips, that the Boeotian 
cities, with the single exception of Orchomenos, 
again resumed their union with Thebes ; but, 
though he generally filled the office of Boeotarch* 

* THs was tlie title of the supreme magistrates of Boeotia ; usually 
each confederate city sent one, and Thebes two. The numbers, however, 
varied ; in the year of the battle of Leuctra there were seven altogether. 



10 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

during these years, we meet with no particular 
mention of his name till the spring of the year 371, 
B.C., when there appeared to be a hope of peace, 
and deputies were sent from Athens and Thebes to 
Sparta to negotiate for the attainment of so desirable 
an object. Of the Theban plenipotentiaries Epa- 
minondas was the chief; the Athenian Callistratus 
was the most distinguished orator of his day among 
his countrymen; and Agesilaus the Spartan king 
was almost as celebrated for his shrewdness and 
readiness in argument as for his military talents ; 
but Epaminondas sustained the cause of his country 
in the debates that ensued with an ability which 
threw the efforts of all the rival orators into the 
shade, and which greatly raised his own reputation 
and the influence of his country. The real object 
of Athens and Sparta was to divide between them- 
selves the supremacy over the whole of Greece ; 
the former having recovered in a great degree her 
maritime dominion, and the latter being supposed 
to be powerful on land beyond all competition ; the 
course by which that object was designed to be 
obtained was the compelling Thebes to admit the 
independence of all the Boeotian cities. Accordingly, 
when the conditions of peace had generally been 
agreed upon, Sparta took the oath to observe them 
on the part of all the cities of Laconia ; but, when 
Epaminondas was about to take the same oath in 
the name of the Boeotian confederacy, Agesilaus 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 11 

objected, and insisted that each of the Boeotian cities 
should swear for itself, as being an independent 
state. The Tlieban chief pointed out that the claim 
of Thebes to supremacy over Bceotia stood on the 
same, or even on stronger grounds, than that of 
Sparta to dominion over the rest of Laconia. If 
the Spartans would leave the towns, in whose name 
her king had already sworn, free and independent, 
Thebes would pursue a similar line of conduct 
towards the inferior towns of Boeotia, though they 
were originally colonies of her own citizens. The 
debate was fierce; Epaminondas, as he afterwards 
boasted, compelled the Lacedaemonians "to lengthen 
their monosyllables;" but, in the end, the Spartans 
refused to recede from their pretensions in any 
respect ; and peace was concluded between the 
other states of Greece without the Thebans being 
parties to it. 

The congress at Sparta was dissolved a little 
before midsummer, and Epaminondas returned to 
Thebes. According to the principles of the ancients, 
the fact of no peace or truce subsisting between 
different states was a sufficient reason, without any 
fresh cause of offence having arisen, for entering 
upon war. Thebes therefore was liable to be at- 
tacked on all sides ; but Athens, professing a friend- 
ship for both rivals, took no part in the war which 
Agesilaus prevailed upon the Lacedaemonian Ephori 
to declare. Cleombrotus, the other Spartan king, 



12 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

was at that moment at the head of an army in 
Phocis on the borders of Boeotia; his force was 
augmented, and he was ordered to invade Boeotia 
without delay, if Thebes did not at once surrender 
her pretensions. But Epaminondas had inspired 
his countrymen with his own resolute and enter- 
prising spirit. He scorned and taught them to 
scorn all idea of concession, and, having, with 
rare tact, won over the Boeotian cities themselves 
to acquiesce in their subordination to Thebes as 
their chief, he marched at the head of a considerable 
force, composed of troops from every city in the 
confederacy, to encounter the invaders. Eager for 
battle he occupied the narrow pass near Cor one a, 
which afforded by far the most practicable route 
for an army approaching from Phocis ; but Cleom- 
brotus, with great mihtary talent, conducted his 
army by a more southern route over the mountains, 
descended upon the port of Creusis, which he took 
by storm, capturing at the same time twelve 
Theban ships of war which lay in the harbour; 
and, having left a garrison in the port, marched 
onward without delay and encamped in the territory 
of Thespise, (the one Boeotian town which had 
immortalised its name by sharing with the Spartans 
the honour of defending Thermopylae). There, on 
the plain of Leuctra, he awaited the attack of the 
Theban generals ; but so great was his numerical 
superiority, and so high the reputation of the 



THE LIFE OF EPAMIXONDAS. 13 

Spartan name for invincibility on the very day 
when it was about to pass away for ever, that it 
required the utmost exertions of Epaminondas and 
Pelopidas to induce the Thebans to accept the 
battle offered to them, even when the alternative 
was the abandonment of their country and depen- 
dence on the charity of Athens for the support of 
their wives and families, for whom they had 
scarcely the courage to raise an arm themselves. 
Such craven spirits did the genius and resolution 
of one man raise in a few years to be the chiefs 
of Greece. 

When at last the determination to fight had been 
formed, the soothsayers had recourse to the com- 
mon Greek expedient of omens and dreams to 
raise the spirits of the troops. On this very spot, 
it was noised about, some Spartan youths had 
formerly subjected the daughters of the Theban 
Scedasus to the worst indignities ; and on the very 
battle-field stood the tomb of the damsels who, 
unable to survive their shame, had slain themselves, 
imprecating curses on the country of their ravishers. 
Pelopidas too had a dream promising victory to 
the Thebans, if they offered up an auburn-haired 
maiden on their tomb. His more civilised age 
revolted from the idea of such a sacrifice as that 
by which Agamemnon had sought the favour of the 
Gods in the Trojan war; but, while the chiefs 
were hesitating, a chesnut filly trotted into the 



14 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

camp, and was at once pronounced by the prophet 
to be the victim indicated by the dream ; her blood|J| 
at least encouraged the men, who conceived greater 
hopes of victory, now that they were about to fight 
under the assured protection and countenance of 
the Gods themselves. 

E]oaminondas disdained such artifices, he was 
so scrupulous a lover of truth that he never per- 
mitted himself to utter a falsehood even in jest. 
Like Pericles, he reckoned the belief in dreams 
and oracles mere pretexts of cowardice, and the 
only omen that he trusted in was, as he told his 
friends, the same which had nerved Hector for the 
onset, 

The one test omen is my country's cause.* 

And that cause he now prepared to uphold with 
the courage and skill, which the importance of the 
interests at stake required : for he was to fight 
for the very existence of his native city. The 
Lacedaemonians, who had lately destroyed Man- 
tinea, and distributed the inhabitants among small 
and impotent villages, were meditating the sub- 
jection of Thebes to a similar treatment; dishonour 
to the temples of the gods, death to himself and 
the other chiefs; a fate little better. than slavery 
to those who were allowed to survive ; these were 

* II- xii. 243. 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 15 

the dangers that were impending over his country- 
Jttjaen, and that could only he averted by victory. 

There were great apparent advantages on the 
side of the Lacedaemonians ; they had a consider- 
able superiority in point of numbers : they had 
experience of, and confidence in their general, who 
had so recently given proof that he well deserved 
it from them ; while the Theban leader was as yet 
untried in action, nor had there been any oppor- 
tunity for the commander to acquire that reliance 
on his troops, and the troops that trust in their 
commander, which has so often been found to 
counterbalance most formidable odds. The seeds 
of that trust were this day to be sown, and were 
destined to produce an ample crop of victory, and 
glory, and power, to both leader and people. 

There were no great advantages of position in 
favour of either side : each army was posted on 
rising ground, and the small plain of Leuctra lay 
between them. Into this plain they both descended; 
the Peloponnesian army in its usual straight line 
of battle, though, so superior were their numbers, 
that they were formed to-day in squadrons twelve 
deep, instead of eight which was the usual custom : 
a thousand cavalry skirmished in their front, and 
the usual complement of light troops covered their 
flanks and rear : the heavy infantry, on which alone 
a Greek general placed any real reliance, are said 
to have amounted to 10,000 men. 



16 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

Epaminondas had not above 6000 infantry ; nor 
were his cavalry so numerous as those of tb^PP 
enemy, though, as he had bestowed great care on 
their discipline, they were superior to them in 
quality ; but he had devised an entirely new system 
of tactics, by which he hoped to make up for his 
inferiority in numbers. He knew that the king 
and the Spartans, who were the flower of the 
opposite army, were on the right wing, and that 
if he could defeat that, he should have but little 
to fear from the centre and the left. Accordingly 
he formed the Theban left in a dense column of 
no less than fifty deep, with Pelopidas and his 
battalion, called the Sacred Band, in their front ; 
and, when the Lacedaemonian cavalry, who began 
the battle, had been routed by the Theban horse, 
not without causing some confusion to the infantry 
behind them, Pelopidas charged the extreme right 
of the enemy, and was supported by the whole 
column with a vigour which its numbers and weight 
made irresistible. Cleombrotus was not wanting 
to his country, or to his own high reputation ; 
though the Theban line, with the exception of this 
column thus thrown upon the Lacedaemonian right, 
was only six deep, it was still far from reaching 
to the extremity of the enemy's left; it seemed 
possible therefore that in this direction the Theban 
position might be turned, and the fortune of the 
day retrieved ; but the probability of such a 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 17 

manoeuvre being attempted had not been unper- 
ceived by Epaminondas, who had in consequence 
thrown back his centre and right wing with the 
intention that those parts of his army which he 
had weakened for the purpose of strengthening 
his column, should be out of reach of attack from 
the heavier array of the Peloponnesians, till the 
column had decided the battle ; trusting that, when 
the Spartans were broken, there would be no such 
zeal on their behalf on the part of their allies as 
to prompt them to continue a hopeless resistance. 
Nor were his calculations deceived by the event : 
Cleombrotus was mortally wounded early in the 
day; Spodrias and other distinguished Spartan 
leaders fell around him ; and, after a fearful 
slaughter, which attested the obstinacy of their 
courage, the whole right wing of the Spartan 
army was routed, and driven back upon their camp. 
The centre and left fell back with them, and their 
entrenchments were too strong for the Thebans 
to attempt to force them. 

Such was the battle of Leuctra ; full of glory 
to the conquerors, and fraught with no disgrace 
to the Lacedaemonians, the greatness of whose loss 
was a sufficient proof of the desperate resolution 
with which they so long resisted the overpowering 
weight of the Theban charge. Of seven hundred 
Spartans, who had descended into the plain in 
the morning, four hundred lay dead or dying on 



18 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

the field ; a thousand of the other Lacedaemonians 
were slain, while their allies had scarcely lost a 
man. The Thehan loss was small in comparison ; 
according to ancient usage^ the conquerors erected 
a trophy of the arms of their slain enemies on the 
field of battle, and cherished the memorials of 
their victory with such reverence, that, five hundred 
years afterwards, Pausanias saw the shields of the 
Spartans, who had fallen on this memorable day, 
preserved with all honour in the temple of the 
Ismenian Apollo, the tutelar deity of their city. 

Such was the battle of Leuctra ; but its import- 
ance was not to be estimated by the comparative 
loss of the conquerors and of the conquered. The 
event was felt as a shock wherever the Grecian 
power was feared, or the Grecian name known. 
A Lacedaemonian army had been beaten b}^ inferior 
numbers, and had acknowledged their defeat by 
requesting permission of the victors to bury their 
dead. A Spartan king had been slain in battle, 
the first instance of the kind since the heroic, 
triumphant death of Leonidas. It was the begin- 
ning of a new era : Sparta had but one ambition, 
but one renown, that of military prowess ; and that 
was reft from her ; a new power had arisen which 
had despoiled her of that glory, and which was 
about to threaten her very existence as a nation. 

The news reached Lacedsemon while the people 
were celebrating one of their most solemn festivals. 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 19 

With Spartan resolution the Ephori would not 
permit the sacred observances to be interrupted, 
or even shortened ; issuing an order that even the 
female relations of the slain " should make no 
noise, but bear their trouble in silence : " with 
Spartan resolution the edict was obeyed, and a sight 
was presented to the spectator such as no other 
city, under similar circumstances, could or would 
have exhibited since the world began ; for the 
contemporary historian Xenophon, from whom 
we derive our principal knowledge of these occur- 
rences, tells us, that " the next day those whose 
relations had fallen showed themselves in public 
with cheerful countenances ; while those whose 
kinsmen were reported to be still alive, appeared 
in scanty numbers, and ^with downcast looks," 
grieving over the dishonour to their families which 
seemed to be implied in their having endured to 
survive the disaster of their country. 

Instead of wasting time in unavailing mourning, 
the Ephori without delay sent an army under 
Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, to ensure the 
safety of the survivors of Leuctra; but, before 
they could arrive in Boeotia, they met their 
countrymen returning, who, by the intervention of 
Jason, the ruler of Thessaly, had obtained from 
Epaminondas an armistice for the purpose of 
quitting the territories which they had invaded. 

One day had overthrown the ascendancy of 

c 2 



20 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

Sparta. Epaminondas was eager to prevent all dan- 
ger of its reviving, and, with wise statesmanship, 
perceived that no means conld be more effectual for 
such an end, than raising up a countervailing power 
in Peloponnesus. With this view he encouraged 
the Mantineans to rebuild their cit}^, and promoted 
with all his energy (if indeed he was not the ori- 
ginal author of it) the design of consolidating the 
small Arcadian communities, and founding the new 
capital of Megalopolis, at no great distance from the 
borders of Laconia, in a situation admirably adapted 
to bridle any efforts that Sparta might make to re- 
cover the ground that she had lost. He was pre- 
paring to inflict on her a still more formidable blow. 
The Argives, as well as the Arcadians, had formed 
an alliance with Thebes. At the head of an allied 
army of 70,000 men, he invaded Peloponnesus, 
and proclaimed the restoration of the Messenians 
to the country from which they had so long been 
expelled. From Northern Greece, and Italy, and 
Sicily, and Africa, the exiles returned to become 
again a nation ; and, on the ridge on which Ithome 
had formerly stood, on which Aristomenes had offered 
his triumphal sacrifices, and where now, at a for- 
tunate moment, the sacred tablet was found which 
the hero had buried, when unable any longer to 
avert the impending ruin of his country, a new 
city arose under the name of Messene, at once a 
striking memorial of the destruction of the Spartan 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 21 

supremacy, and a perpetual obstacle to its resur- 
rection. 

In the mean time, he himself, having diyidecl his 
army into four bodies, passed rapidly through the 
northern parts of the Peloponnesus, where his 
victory at Leuctra had roused ever}^ people, except 
the Achseans, to hostility to Sparta ; he entered 
Laconia, and, re-uniting his divisions at Sellasia, 
marched onwards to the banks of the Em-otas, and 
to the bridge which connected the suburbs with 
the city of Lacedsemon. Never before, since the 
descendants of Hercules had established their 
sovereignty in the land, had the fires of a hostile 
camp been seen from the windows of that city. 
True, .there were no protecting fortresses in the 
district, no walls to the city ; but her citizens had 
long reposed secure in the confidence, that the 
same valour which carried fire and sword into other 
lands, which had extorted respect from Thracian 
barbarians, and shaken the distant throne of the 
Persian despot, would for ever preserve their own 
soil inviolate, their own city impregnable : while 
now their blazing suburbs, thickly studded with the 
villas of the wealthiest and noblest of their race, 
were a fearful token that all things had passed 
away, and that her future struggles must be for 
safety and for existence. Her sole hope was in 
the skill and energy of Agesilaus. A considerable 
force of allies from Achaia arrived most opportunely 



22 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

by sea ; to them lie added six thousand Helots, to 
whom he gave liberty and arms ; and, abandoning 
Amyclse, confined his efforts to the defence of the 
capital itself. In one skirmish, the only combat 
which he would grant to the impatience of his 
troops, he gained a slight advantage over the in- 
vaders ; and Epaminondas, finding himself unable 
to assault the city itself with any fair prospect of 
success, proceeded onwards to the coast, threatened 
the arsenal at Gythium, and then, finding that his 
Peloponnesian allies were beginning to leave him, 
to secure the booty which they had acquired, he re- 
traced his steps, and having ascertained that the 
fortifications of Messene were now so far advanced 
that the presence of his army was no longer needed, 
he returned home. The legal period of his com- 
mand had already expired, and faction was so 
strong at Thebes, that persons were found to 
impeach both him and Pelopidas of the capital 
offence of an illegal retention of office. Pelopidas 
was acquitted, and Epaminondas made so strong 
an impression on the minds of his judges by a 
recital of his great deeds, and of the objects for 
which he had exceeded the law, — being willing, as 
he told them, to die, if the three names of Leuctra, 
Messene, and Sparta, might be inscribed on his 
tomb, (that his countrymen might never forget how 
he had conquered at the one, restored the other, 
and humbled the last,) — that in his case they would 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 33 

not go through the form of voting, but dismissed 
the charge by their unanimous acclamation. 

The next year he again invaded Peloponnesus ; * 
on this occasion Athens, which (unwilling, to use an 
expression of one of her orators, to see one of the 
eyes of Greece put out, and the power of Sparta 
wholly destroyed) had made an ineffectual attempt 
to cut off Epaminondas's return to Thebes from 
his first invasion, now sent a force under Chabrias 
to join the Spartans at the Isthmus : the allied 
army far outnumbered the Thebans, but Epami- 
nondas forced their lines, compelled or induced 
Pellene and the important town of Sicyon to 
separate themselves from Sparta, and to join the 
Theban alliance ; took prisoners a number of 
Boeotian refugees belonging to the opposite party, 
whom, with a mildness and humanity previously 
unheard of in Greece, he suffered to depart un- 
injured, setting the first example of mercy towards 
political opponents that is to be found in ancient 
history ; and proceeded to attack Corinth, of which 
he would have made himself master, had it not 
been for the promptness of Chabrias, who, aided 
by a reinforcement which arrived just at the time 
from Dionysius of Syracuse, the elder tyrant of 

* It is not quite clear in which year this second invasion of Pelo- 
ponnesus took place. Thirlwall places it in 368 ; Grote, in 369. There 
is a similar doubt as to the year in which Epaminondas was in 
Thessaly, and that in which Orchomenos was destroyed ; but the ques- 
tion is of no importance to the general history. 



24 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

that name, garrisoned the city, and frustrated the 
attempt of a faction to betray it to the Thebans. 

Epaminondas returned home and disbanded his 
troops : the comparatively barren results of his 
campaign had given his enemies a handle to renew 
their attacks upon him, as having designedly spared 
the Lacedaemonians ; and, when his year of office 
expired, he was not re-elected Boeotarch. In the 
mean time, Pelopidas, incautiously trusting himself 
in the power of Alexander, the unworthy successor 
o/ Jason as tja^ant of Pherse in Thessaly, had been 
thrown into prison by him, and was in danger of 
being put to death. The Thebans, sensible of his 
value, sent an army under Cleomenes to rescue 
him, in which Epaminondas, full of solicitude for 
his friend, did not disdain to serve as a private 
soldier. The Athenians, eager to check the growing 
power of Thebes by the detention of so important 
a prisoner, sent a reinforcement to Alexander under 
Autocles, who took the command of the Thessalian 
army, and conducted it with such skill that the 
Thebans were soon in the greatest danger ; and 
would in all probability have been wholly cut oif, 
if the soldiers had not themselves risen to depose 
Cleomenes from a position which he was incom- 
petent to fill, and called upon Epaminondas to 
extricate them from the dangers which surrounded 
them. He took the command, baffled the tactics, 
and repulsed the attacks of the enemy, and led the 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 25 

army back in safety to Thebes. The contrast 
between their danger when other leaders were at 
the helm and their success under Epaminondas, 
raised his reputation more highly than ever among 
his countrymen, and the command of a second 
expedition, sent out with the same object — the 
rescue of Pelopidas, was committed to him and 
was completely successful. 

On his return he was sent on a more peaceful 
mission into Arcadia : weariness of the war, a 
feeling which was beginning to prevail among the 
subordinate states on either side, had induced the 
Arcadians to make overtures of peace and friend- 
ship to Athens ; and Epaminondas, as the only one 
of his nation eminent for oratorical and diplomatic 
ability, went, accompanied by an envoy from Argos, 
as ambassador, to impede or prevent the proposed 
alliance. He was again opposed to Callistratus, 
whom he had before encountered at Sparta, and 
history has preserved one rejoinder which was con- 
sidered by his contemporaries to do great credit to 
his readiness and ingenuity. " The Thebans," said 
Callistratus, " have at all times been faithless and 
impious : was not (Edipus, who slew his father and 
married his mother, a Theban born ? " " Surely," 
retorted Epaminondas ; " but while he lived at 
Thebes he was believed to be a pure and virtuous 
citizen; when his crimes were known, and when, 
for them, he was exiled from Thebes, he was 



26 THE LIFE OF EPAlSaNONDAS. 

received, with all Ms notorious infamy, with open 
arms by Athens." The ingenuity of the reply 
failed to ensure the success of the mission ; as the 
Arcadians made terms with the Athenians, though 
without renouncuig all friendship with Thebes. 

On the other hand, the Corinthians, Phliasians, 
and Epidaurians made peace with Thebes, to which 
Sparta refused to become a party, being resolVed 
never to admit the independence of Messene, which 
was the first condition insisted upon by Epami- 
nondas : they did not indeed make a treaty of 
alliance with Thebes, as that would have involved 
them in war with Sparta ; but still peace with them 
was very advantageous to her, as diminishing the 
number of her enemies, who were now confined to 
Athens and Sparta, a pair of confederates to which 
she, with the assistance of Argos, had now no 
reason to think herself unequal. 

His past successes now encouraged Epaminc^as 
to form, or to give expression to, bolder ideas. 
The greatness of Athens had been owing to her 
maritime supremacy; that it was which had been 
the source of her riches and her greatness ; it had 
been founded by some of her most glorious achieve- 
ments, had not been permanently impaired even by 
the defeat of ^gospotami, was soon restored by 
Conon, and had again been acquiesced in as before 
by the rest of the Grecian states on either side of 
the iEgean. He now conceived the idea of grap- 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. '^7 

pling with this Queen of the sea on her own 
element, and with powerful eloquence bade his 
countrymen no longer crouch to the fancied supe- 
riority of the Athenians, nor rest till they had 
ornamented their own citadel with the decorations 
to be stripped from the Athenian Acropolis. His 
audience were fired with his own enthusiasm and 
passed a vote to build a hundred triremes, and 
docks and arsenals for the adequate maintenance 
of such an armament. Ambassadors were sent to 
the different islands, and even to Byzantium, to 
endeavour to prevail on the allies of Athens to 
separate themselves from her interests, and to 
submit to that power which was to be the new 
mistress of the ocean ; and with such success 
were these negotiations carried on, that even 
Euboea exchanged the Athenian for the Theban 
alliance ; and when Epaminondas himself, at the 
head of a small fleet, visited some of the islands 
on the Ionian coast, his eloquence and the charm 
or terror of his name had so much influence, that 
he flattered himself that he had laid a foundation 
on which it should be easy to erect the universal 
supremacy of his country. 

It was probably about this time that Artaxerxes, 
who had been favourably impressed with ideas of the 
genius of Epaminondas from intercourse with his 
friend Pelopidas, who had lately been sent as ambas- 
sador to the Persian court, hearing of his poverty, 



28 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

sought to attach him to his interests, and sent 
Diomedon of Cyzicus to Thehes with a large sum of 
money, which he was to place at his disposal. Dio- 
medon won over one of his friends, hy name Micythus, 
to plead with him, but Epaminondas disdained a 
bribe, bidding Diomedon report to his master that, 
if the objects which the king of Persia had in view 
were calculated for the advantage of Thebes, he 
might at all times count upon his exertions to carry 
them out without payment ; but, if he designed evil 
to Thebes, then the whole world could not contain 
that amount of silver and gold which could tempt 
him to forget his duty to his country. Micythus he 
compelled to return what he had received, and, at 
his own request, sent Diomedon with his treasures 
under a guard to Athens, that there might be no 
suspicion that any of the money had reached him 
secretly which he had refused to accept openly. 

It was either while Epaminondas was away on his 
naval expedition, or while he was in Thessaly pro- 
curing the deliverance of Pelopidas from prison, 
that the Thebans availed themselves of his absence 
to satisfy their revenge on Orchomenos. It was the 
second city of Boeotia, and, from jealousy of Thebes, 
had taken part with the Lacedaemonians till their 
defeat at Leuctra. Flushed with their victory, the 
Thebans threatened to make it atone for its rebellion 
against Boeotian interests, by destroying the city and 
reducing the inhabitants to slavery ; and they were 



tHE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 29 

only turned from their purpose by the influence of 
Epaminondas, who impressed upon them the neces- 
sity of establishing a character for moderation and 
humanity, if they hoped for either extended or 
durable dominion. At that time, therefore, they 
accepted the submission of the city, and re -admitted 
it as a member of the Boeotian confederacy; but the 
hatred of the democratical party in Thebes towards 
it, as the head of the opposite faction, was only slum- 
bering till it could find a convenient opportunity to 
gratify itself. Under pretext of an alleged con- 
spiracy on the part of the Orchomenians to effect an 
aristocratical revolution in Thebes, the opposite party 
took advantage of the absence of Epaminondas, 
arrested the chiefs of the Orchomenians, and brought 
them to trial before the assembly, who had probably 
prejudged their cause, and who without delay con- 
demned them to death, and pronounced a similar 
sentence against the whole people. A Theban army 
was instantly sent against the devoted city ; its 
walls were razed to the ground, its men were slain 
with the sword, the women and children were carried 
away into slavery. Epaminondas, on his return, 
expressed the deepest grief for and indignation at 
the event, and affirmed that Meneclidas and his 
faction would never have dared to proceed to such 
extremities if he had been in the country. Bishop 
Thirlwall pronounces " the precipitation with which 
the people indulged their evil passions in his absence, 



30 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

the most honourable homage ever paid by a Greek 
state to the virtue of a citizen." * 

The war with Peloponnesus had been slumbering, 
but was now about to be rekindled in all its former 
fury by the intestine divisions of Arcadia. In spite 
of the injuries which the people of Mantinea had 
received from the Lacedaemonians, they now, to 
obtain support in a quarrel with the Tegeans, sought 
to form an alliance with them. The Tegeans and the 
democratic party in Mantinea sent speedy intima- 
tion to Epaminondas of the danger that there was 
that Arcadia, or a considerable portion of it, might, 
if no counteracting measures were adopted, be 
speedily detached from the Theban confederacy. 
They besought him to appear in the country, where 
his presence would be sufficient to check the con- 
templated revolution. In the mean time the united 
assembly of the Arcadian people made a treaty of 
peace with the Eleans, with whom they had lately 
been at war, with the warm approbation of even 
those cities which adhered most firmly to the Theban 
interest, though it had been concluded without 
Thebes having been consulted on the subject. 
When the deputies appointed to receive the ratifi- 
cation of the peace came to Tegea, the commander of 
the Theban garrison sanctioned the solemnity by 

* History of Greece, c. xl. — I take this opportunity of acknow- 
ledging my obligations to, and the copious use that I have made of the 
admii'able Histories of Grreece by himself and Mr. Grote. 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 31 

liis presence, and harmony and mutual goodwill 
appeared to have succeeded to faction and rivalry. 
But in the evening, while the chief citizens, with 
some of the leaders of the other Arcadian cities, 
were celebrating the event at a banquet, the Theban 
commander, excited by some report of meditated 
treachery within the town, to be supported by a 
Lacedaemonian force reported to be on the march, 
seized the chiefs of the aristocratical party as they 
sat at the feast, and threw them into prison. And 
though the next morning, in compliance with an 
earnest remonstrance of the chief authorities, he 
released his prisoners, and explained the causes of 
the arrest, the Arcadians were not pacified, but sent 
envoys to Thebes with bitter complaints of his 
conduct, and peremptory demands of his immediate 
and condign punishment. 

Their complaints, however, did not obtain a 
favourable hearing at Thebes ; the defence of the 
accused commander arrived at the same time with 
the complaints against him, and so conclusive were 
the proofs which he was able to bring forward, either 
that he really had baf&ed an act of intended treachery, 
or, at least, that he had sufficient grounds for be- 
lieving such an act to be meditated, that Epami- 
nondas pronounced that the arrest of the Arcadians 
had been more justifiable than their release ; 
adding, that the Thebans had ample grounds of 
complaint against the Arcadians, who, after having 



32 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

invited them into Peloponnesus, had now made 
peace without consulting them. He added, that he 
would soon appear in arms in Arcadia, to support 
the friends and to make war upon the enemies — the 
treacherous enemies of his country. 

He had much reason to view these divisions in 
Arcadia with anxiety and apprehension : the revo- 
lutions in Grecian politics were so violent and so 
sudden that it was no uncommon thing to find 
cities that had heen combating side by side at the 
beginning of the year, warring against one another 
face to face before the end of it ; and the soundest 
political calculations were liable to be deranged in a 
moment if the city which was the head of a confede- 
racy did not keep their subordinate states to their 
allegiance by the strong hand. The darling object 
of Epaminondas had been to bridle the power of 
Sparta by establishing the independence of Mes- 
sene, and consolidating the union of Arcadia ; but, 
now that the Arcadians had made peace with Elis 
and Achaia, the alhes of Sparta, it was not impro- 
bable that the next step would be to form an 
alliance with Sparta herself, so that the power 
which he had created would be turned against him. 
Tegea and Megalopolis alone of the Arcadian towns ' 
remained faithful to Theban interests, and sent 
envoys to him to beg for his support at the head of 
his army. If he failed or delayed to afford it, it was 
plain that there was the greatest danger that these 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 33 

towns also might be forced to follow the lead of 
the rest, that Arcadia would be wholly lost to 
Thebes, and consequently that Sparta w^ould find 
nothing in Peloponnesus powerful enough to resist 
her efforts for the recovery of her lost supremacy. 

Accordingly Epaminondas prepared for what was 
destined to be his last campaign ; from Sicyon, and 
Argos, and Messenia, reinforcements flocked to 
his standard ; the Eubseans crossed the Euripus 
to cement their new alliance on the field of battle ; 
Alexander of Pherse, who had been compelled by 
numerous defeats (though these advantages had 
been dearly purchased by the death of Pelopidas), 
to enter into a treaty with Thebes, and to engage 
to supply her with troops whenever she required 
them, sent a numerous contingent consisting partly 
of cavalry, so that when Epaminondas, who met with 
no interruption in occupying the Isthmus, arrived at 
Tegea, where he was joined by the troops of that 
city and of Megalopolis, he found his army amount 
to no less than 30,000 infantry, and 3000 cavalry. 
He had halted for a few days at Nemea, on the 
northern frontier of Argolis, in hopes to intercept 
the Athenian army which he understood to be on 
its way to join the Lacedsemonians ; but the Athe- 
nians were designing to cross by sea and to land 
on the eastern coast of Laconia ; and the delay 
was not only unsuccessful but injurious, as it 
allowed the Peloponnesian army to concentrate itself 



34 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

at Mantinea. There the Mantmeans and the rest 
of the Arcadians, the Eleans, and the Achseans 
were now assembled, the Athenians were hastening 
thither with a numerous body of cavalry, and 
Agesilaus, though in his eightieth j^ear, was march- 
ing at the head of the Lacedsemonians, to assume 
the supreme command. His movements were no 
secret to the Theban general; and, after having 
in vain attempted to provoke the Peloponnesians to 
action before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians and 
Athenians, Epaminondas, judging that the depar- 
ture of Agesilaus with such an army as he had 
with him, must have left Sparta itself defenceless, 
broke up his camp at Tegea, and marching all night 
by the lower road (Agesilaus was advancing by the 
road of the upper Eurotas through Pellana), arrived 
in front of Sparta the next morning. The plan 
was as skilful as it was bold, and as well executed 
as it was skilful ; and Epaminondas must, as 
Xenophon expresses it, have taken the city as a 
boy takes a nest of young birds, if a Cretan deserter 
had not hastened to Agesilaus with the news, on 
which the king turned back with those forces which 
he had with him (the main body of his army had 
gone forward to Mantinea), and arrived again in 
Sparta, in time to place the city in a posture of 
defence. Disappointed in his attempt to surprise 
it, Epaminondas resolved to try the event of an 
open attack, and crossed the Eurotas, carried one 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 35 

of the heights which commanded it, and descended 
towards the Market-place. But Agesilaus had 
posted the old men and the boys with missile 
weapons on the house-tops, the streets were lined 
with regular troops, and Epaminondas hesitated to 
expose his men in so dangerous and difficult a 
contest. A part of his army, which carried its 
daring too far, was repulsed by Archidamus with a 
small band of a hundred men ; and historians have 
handed down to us the name of Isidas as the hero 
entitled to the honours of the day. He was naked 
in his house anointing himself for the exercises 
of the Palaestra, when the din of battle reached his 
ear. He stayed not to don helmet or breastplate, 
he would not even encumber himself with his 
shield, but with a lance in his left hand, and a 
sword in his right, he sallied forth and plunged 
into the middle of the fray, looking (he was eminent 
for the perfection of his manly beauty), as though 
Apollo himself had descended to mingle in the 
fight; deadly were the blows that he dealt among 
the enemy's ranks, striking down every man whom 
he attacked, while he himself remained unwounded 
and unhurt ; whether it was, as Plutarch says, that 
Heaven preserved him out of regard to his valour ; 
or that he appeared to the foe as something more 
than human. When the enemy had retreated, the 
Ephori presented him with a crown for his valour, 
but vindicated the rigour of Spartan discipline by 

D 2 



86 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

inflicting a heavy fine on him for fighting without 
his armour. 

Beinforcements to the garrison were expected 
from Arcadia, so Epaminondas prepared to retreat. 
Accident had disconcerted his well-imagined scheme ; 
still it was something to have ^ second time dared 
the Spartans in their very homes, and to withdraw 
unconquered, unattacked from their territory. They 
had been used to boast that none of their women 
had ever seen the camp of an enemy ; that no foe 
had ever approached the banks of the sacred 
Eurotas, that none had ever left his bones to lie 
buried beneath the plains of Lacedaemon. These 
proud words could never be repeated again ; twice 
within a few years had the Spartan women trembled 
for their household gods; twice had the beleaguering 
hosts stood between the sacred river and the city; 
and Tlieban and Spartan blood had mingled on the 
no longer inviolable ^Dlain. 

Having failed at Sparta, he resolved to attempt 
the surprise of Mantinea; if, as was understood, 
the Peloponnesian army was hastening to the relief 
of Lacedaemon, that town was likely to be unde- 
fended, and would be a prize almost as important 
as its more renowned ally. Again accident baffled 
the best-founded calculations. Without giving his 
troops any rest, Epaminondas marched back to 
Tegea, and sent his cavalry forward to Mantinea. 
Had they arrived but one hour earlier, they would 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 37 

have found it empty; the soldiers were gone to 
Laconia, the peaceful population were in the fields 
collecting the harvest. But the Athenians, when 
they heard that the Thehans had quitted Nemea, 
had changed their purpose of transporting their 
army hy sea to Laconia ; they were now approaching 
from the Isthmus ; and the cavalry, which was their 
advanced guard, had just entered Mantinea when 
the Theban horse came in sight. They sallied 
out from the quarters which they had just taken 
up; the Thebans and Thessalians were the more 
numerous body, and had perhaps the higher repu- 
tation as cavalry; but on this day, though both 
parties were wearied with their long previous march, 
the Athenians were the freshest of the two ; after 
a hard-fought action they repulsed their enemies 
and returned in safety within the walls of the city. 

The discomfited Theban and Thessalian horse 
rejoined their infantry at Tegea; while Agesilaus 
returned with his Spartans and the Arcadians, w^ho 
had gone to his assistance, to Mantinea, and both 
armies prepared for the impending battle. 

Mantinea was about ten miles to the north of 
Tegea ; and between them, bounded by high ranges 
of mountains both on the east and on the west, 
lay the plain of Mantinea, known to the modern 
traveller as the plain of Tripolitza, the largest of 
the vallies in the centre of Peloponnesus ; towards 
the centre of the plain the mountains approach 



38 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

one another more nearly, so as to leave little more 
than a narrow pass ; in front of this pass, which 
was, as it were, the key to the whole Mantinean 
territory, Agesilaus marshalled his men to await 
the attack which Epaminondas was preparing. 

On the Thehan side all was confidence and eager- 
ness for battle ; they were superior in numbers, they 
were led bj^ the conqueror of Leuctra ; though disap- 
pointed in their recent enterprise, they were flushed 
with pride at having threatened Sparta and laid 
waste her territory, and at having returned without 
their enemies daring to molest them. Both armies 
confronted each other, when Epaminondas, instead 
of giving the signal to engage, turned towards the 
western range of hills, and made a circuitous march 
along the border of the plain, halting near the 
enemy's position on their right flank, where he 
ordered his men to pile their arms, so as to present 
the appearance of being about to encamp and to 
decline any action for that day. The Spartans 
were completely deceived ; they fell out of the 
ranks and straggled over the plain ; some of the 
cavalry relieved their horses of their accoutrements ; 
all vigilance, even all military order, was at an end 
for the day, when they were surprised and dismayed 
by seeing the Thebans take up their arms, and 
advance with swiftness to the attack. 

Epaminondas proposed to repeat in a great 
measure the tactics which had proved so decisive 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 39 

at Leuctra; on the enemy's side the Mantineans 
now held the post of honour, hecause the battle 
was to be fought in their territory, and next to them 
were the Spartans. This right wing was intended, 
as at Leuctra, to receive the charge of the Theban 
column strengthened with the same irresistible 
numbers, so that, according to the hopes of the 
Theban chief, wherever it fell upon the enemy, it 
would cut through his line, as, to use the compa- 
rison of Xenophon, the prow of a trireme cuts in 
two pieces another vessel which it strikes upon the 
side. Beyond the Lacedaemonians stood the Eleans 
and the Achseans ; the extreme left was composed 
of the Athenians, in whose ranks the celebrated 
^schines was serving on this occasion ; Athenian 
cavalry also covered the left flank, and the horse- 
men of EKs the right. In the Theban army the 
Argives occupied the extreme right, the Arcadians, 
Messenians, and other allies the centre ; while, as 
they had now the advantage of numbers, it was not 
on this occasion necessary to throw back the centre 
and right wing as had been done at Leuctra. The 
bulk of the cavalry was also arranged in a deep and 
solid column, strengthened with companies of light- 
armed infantry, to break the Eleans who were 
covering the flank of the Mantineans ; a small body 
being left in reserve to watch the Athenian cavalry, 
and to prevent any flank movement that might be 
attempted^from that quarter. 



40 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

The Theban and Thessalian cavalry began the 
battle with a successful charge upon the Eleans, 
^Yho were completely routed ; the conquerors ab- 
stained from pursuit in order to aid the column of 
infantry in its attack on the Spartan and Mantinean 
phalanx; on came the column with Epaminondas 
himself at its head ; the Spartans, recovered from 
their surprise, fought with the stubborn intrepidity 
of their nation, till the overpowering weight of the 
Theban masses broke through their ranks, and all 
was disorder and rout. In the moment of victory 
Epaminondas, who had exerted and exposed him- 
self like the most valueless of the common soldiers 
(in those days such self-forgetfulness was required 
of the general as one of his first duties), received a 
mortal wound in his breast, and fell into the arms 
of his comrades. The battle ceased in an instant ; 
paralysed by sorrow and consternation, the Thebans 
ceased to pursue the flying, or to slaughter their 
unresisting enemies ; the cavalry fell back ; the 
allies opposed to the Athenians, who were fighting 
with a resolution undismayed by the rout of their 
allies at the other extremity of the line, ceased to 
attack them, and the combat was over except where 
some of the Thessalian light - infantry, who had 
been mingled with their cavalry, straggled in the 
security of conquest to the Athenian ranks, and by 
their slaughter afforded them a pretext for erecting 
a trophy and claiming a victory. ♦ 



THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 41 

Victory, however, did not belong to their side. 
The Thebans were masters of the field of battle, 
and the Lacedsemonians, who sent a herald to 
request permission to bury their dead, by that 
request confessed their own defeat. Of the extent 
of the loss sustained by the contending armies 
we are ignorant ; but some of the most eminent 
of the Thebans had fallen besides the chief; and 
there was no one left fit to take the command, 
or possessed of influence enough over the allies, 
and sufficient military skill to turn the dear-bought 
victory to account. 

The dying hero was borne off the field with the 
fatal spear still sticking in the wound. His last 
thoughts were for his honour and his country. 
The questions which he addressed to his friends 
with anxious solicitude, concerned the safety of 
his shield, and the certainty of victory for Thebes. 
When assured on these points, he declared himself 
willing to die, (he had been used to say, that the 
happiest death for a warrior was on the field of 
battle,) and commanding the spear which was still 
sticking in the wound to be drawn out, he expired. 

So important was his death, that every nation 
which fought against him, claimed the honour of 
having slain him for one of her citizens, — the 
Mantineans for a man named Machaerion ; the 
Athenians for Gryllus, the son of Xenophon, 
though that could hardly be, for the wing of the 



42 THE LIFE OF EPAMINONDAS. 

army of which the Athenians formed a part, was not 
that with which Epaminondas had heen engaged ; 
and five hundred years afterwards the Spartans 
called the descendants of Anticrates, to w^hom they 
attributed the exploit, by a name indicative of the 
martial prowess of their ancestor, and still allowed 
them the same exemption from taxes, which in the 
first moment of exultation they had conferred upon 
their ancestor. 

On " the field of his fame " his countrymen 
buried their fallen chief; a column was raised 
over his grave, adorned with emblems, denoting 
his warlike prowess, and his illustrious descent ; 
and on his statue the Thebans carved the following 
inscription recording, in a few words, the achieve- 
ments and objects of his life. 

While I in life Boeotia's councils swayed, 

Proud Sparta learnt to bow the humbled knee ; 

Restored Messene raised her sacred head ; 

Thebes was triumphant, and all Grreece was free. 



THE 

LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 

KINa OF SWEDEIS". 



GusTAvus THE Second, 01 Gustavus Adolphus, 
to give him the double name by which he is usually 
distinguished, was the grandson of Gustavus Vasa, 
the deliverer of Sweden ; of whom his father 
Charles was the youngest son. His eldest uncle, 
Eric, had died without issue, after a reign of eight 
years, and was succeeded by his brother John. 
John died in 1592, leaving one son named Sigis- 
mund, who a few years before had been elected 
king of Poland, and another by a second wife, 
John, Duke of Ostrogothia. Sigismund succeeded 
to the throne, but his Swedish subjects, being 
enraged at his abandonment of the Protestant 
religion, which was established by law in the 
country, and which he had himself sworn to main- 
tain ; and also at his open design and endeavour 
to reduce their nation to the condition of a mere 
province or dependency of Poland, deposed him 



44 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

in favour of his infant son, Yladislaus ; and the 
next year they deposed Vladislaus also, and raised 
Charles, then duke of Sudermania, to the vacant 
throne. 

Under his wise and energetic rule Sweden, 
though scarcely ever at peace, made great advances 
in internal prosperity, as well as in military power 
and reputation. After a reign of ten years, he 
died, leaving his kingdom to his eldest son, 
Gustavus Adolphus, whose education he had super- 
intended with peculiar care ; and for whom, two 
years before his death, he had endeavoured to 
negotiate a marriage with the Princess Elizabeth 
of England, who afterwards became the wife of 
that unfortunate Elector Palatine Frederic V., 
whose ill-judging ambition was the principal cause 
of the thirty years' w^ar. 

Gustavus, whose mother Christina, the second 
wife of Charles IX., was the daughter of Adolphus, 
duke of Holstein, was born December 9, a.d. 1594; 
so that on his father's death, in 1611, he was not 
yet seventeen years of age, w^ anting more than a 
year of his majority, which is fixed in Sweden at 
eighteen. So high, however, was the opinion that 
the estates of the kingdom had already formed of 
his abilities, that two months after his accession, 
his cousin, the duke of Ostrogothia, who was his 
principal guardian, with their unanimous consent 
resigned his charge, and committed the uncon- 



THE LIFE OP GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 45 

trolled power to Ms youthful hands; and on the 
last day of the year, he was solemnly crowned king 
of Sweden. 

He came to the throne at a very critical time 
for his country, w^hen the surrounding states were 
either openly at war with 'it, or cherishing designs 
of secret hostility against it. His first and most 
formidable enemy was Christian IV., king of 
Denmark, then in the prime of life, an ambitious, 
warlike, and able monarch ; who had gained some 
considerable advantages over Charles IX., and 
who continued the war with increased vigour when 
encouraged by the accession of so youthful a 
Prince. During the year 1612, the advantage 
was, on the whole, on the side of Denmark ; and 
Gustavus, who was naturally a lover of peace, and 
who desired rather to direct his attention to the 
amelioration of the internal condition of his sub- 
jects, accepted the mediation of James I. of 
England, and concluded a peace with Denmark, 
not without some sacrifices, in the ensuing January. 
He now applied himself diligently to measures 
of domestic reform and improvement. Trade and 
commerce could hardly be said as yet to have any 
existence in the country, which was almost equally 
destitute of any warlike or mercantile marine. 
Gustavus employed the first moments of peace in 
effecting a treaty with Holland, at that time the 
first commercial nation in Europe ; which, among 



46 THE LITE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

other advantages, enabled him to attract into his 
service skilful sailors from that country. Then, 
having committed the principal administration of 
all civil affairs to Oxenstiern, who was at that time 
a young man of eight or nine-and-twenty years of 
age, but who had already given indications of that 
admirable political and administrative genius which ■ 
has raised him to an equal reputation with the 
most famous ministers of the most powerful nations 
of Europe. He proceeded to regulate the royal 
revenues, to codify the laws, and to take measures 
for the encouragement of education in the native 
University of Upsal ; for previously the wealthiest 
and noblest Swedes had been educated chiefly at 
Warsaw or Cracow, where they had not unnaturally 
imbibed sentiments favourable to Sigismund, who 
had not yet given up the idea of recovering the 
Swedish crown. 

Muscovy and Poland had long borne ill-will 
towards Sweden, that of Muscovy being sharpened 
by a disinclination to repay a heavy loan which 
had been advanced to her. Gustavus, who had 
assured Christian of his peaceable inclinations by 
the mouth of Oxenstiern, whom he had sent to 
Denmark as his ambassador, and who had renewed 
these assurances in a conference which he himself 
had with that sovereign, sent envoys with proposals 
of peace to the Czar, who at first would listen to 
no terms of accommodation ; but when Gustavus 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 47 

had invaded Russia, had defeated his army, and 
had taken one or two of his most strongly fortified 
towns and fortresses, he likewise begged the inter- 
position of England, and obtained peace by the 
sacrifice of some considerable provinces. 

The hostility of Sigismund, king of Poland^ was 
more important, and more durable ; he looked upon 
the throne of Sweden as his own by the right of 
inheritance, and refused all proposals to treat, 
thinking that the youth of Gustavus offered him a 
fair prospect of recovering it. While he was pre- 
paring for war, Gustavus resolved to anticipate 
him ; and, taking advantage of the necessity which 
Sigismund was under of dividing his forces, (since 
Bethlehem Gabor, enraged at his having assisted 
the emperor of Germany in the late Hungarian 
war, was ravaging some of his southern provinces,) 
invaded Livonia, conquered the whole of that pro- 
vince and Polish Prussia, and compelled the king 
to sue for peace, which he granted, though he saw 
clearly that it was but a temporary measure, and 
that Sigismund would renew the war the first 
moment that he was released from fear of his other 
enemies. 

In the short interval of peace which ensued, 
almost the only one that he was permitted to enjoy, 
he continued his labours for the internal improve- 
ment of his kingdom ; and then, turning his atten- 
tion to warlike affairs, he soon placed his navy on 



48 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

such a footing, that it was equal to that of any- 
other European power in the north of Europe, with 
the exception of England. He then proceeded to 
remodel the army and the whole military system 
of the kingdom ; abolishing the massive and un- 
wieldy battalions of infantry and squadrons of 
cavalry in which the Continental armies had 
hitherto been arrayed, and which often proved 
fully as embarrassing to their generals as danger- 
ous to their enemies ; he substituted for them light 
and manageable regiments of moderate numbers ; 
and, by an equally important innovation, he began 
to teach the infantry to act in concert with, and to 
combine their movements with those of the cavahy. 
He reduced the weight of their arms, and of the 
artillery, thus rendering them more moveable and 
available on sudden emergencies ; so that to any- 
one who observed his conduct, it was plain that a 
new era in war was about to commence, in which 
celerity of movement and promptitude were to be 
matched against mere brute force and superiority of 
numbers. 

Sigismund had broken all the conditions of the 
peace which had been granted to him; and had 
provoked Gustavus to repeat his invasion of Poland. 
But before engaging in this war, which he foresaw, 
from the turn which affairs were taking in Bohemia, 
was likely to be of long duration, and one which 
"would not be left to the sole decision of the Swedish 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 49 

and Polish arms, he solicited another conference 
with the king of Denmark, which lasted a fortnight, 
and of which he made such good use, that the 
friendship between them, which was cemented on 
that occasion — though somewhat interrupted by 
mutual jealousies — nevertheless, lasted unbroken 
through all the troubles and dangers in which 
Gustavus was involved, for the remainder of his life. 
It was at this time that he married Maria Elea- 
nora. Princess of Brandenburg ; and having cele- 
brated his nuptials and his queen's coronation at 
Stockholm with great pomp in November, he 
prepared to attack Sigismund, who had refused all 
his overtures for a permanent peace, with the whole 
of his power. He began the campaign by besieging 
Riga with 24,000 men. Riga was at this time 
probably the most important city in the north of 
Europe. It had an admirable harbour, which has 
preserved its importance to the present day ; a 
thriving and numerous population; fortifications 
strengthened with all the resources that the art of 
the engineer could then supply, and an adequate 
garrison, enthusiastically attached to the king. 
Gustavus invested it so completely, as to baffle all 
attempts to throw reinforcements into it ; stopped 
the entrance of any supplies by throwing a boom 
across the river Dwina, till at last, after the siege 
had lasted six weeks, and had been carried on with 
great loss on both sides, the city surrendered. 



50 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

Gustavus entered the gates in .triumph; and, 
after receiving the keys, the first use that he made 
of his victory was to direct his steps to the great 
church of St. Peter, where he fell on his knees and 
returned thanks to God for the success which he 
had granted to his arms. He then received the 
principal inhabitants, praised them for their loyalty 
to Sigismund, and expressing a hope and confidence 
that the}^ would henceforth be as faithful to himself, 
incorporated the city on the most favourable terms 
with his native dominions. 

It is said that the skill and novelty of his 
arrangements in this siege so forcibly struck Spi- 
nola, who was reputed at that time the first general 
in Europe, that he warned the Emperor that a 
Protestant prince had risen up of a very different 
stamp from the other chiefs of that persuasion, and 
that, if he did not find employment for Gustavus in 
the north, Gustavus would be likely to find it for 
him in his own empire. His success reduced Sigis- 
mund again to sue for a truce, which the King of 
Sweden granted him as a temporary measure, to 
subsist till June, 1625, much to the dissatisfaction 
of the Spaniards, who, acting on the warnings of 
Spinola, sent an embassy to Sigismund, to press 
him to continue the war. But Gustavus had now 
got so powerful a fleet, that he swept the Baltic 
with above sixty ships, and Sigismund, however 
inclined for war, was forced to adhere to peace, as 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 51 

the Spaniards were in no condition to aid him with 
ships, which was the only effectual assistance that a 
power so distant could afford him. 

For two years, therefore, Gustavus remained in 
Sweden, continuing his labours for the internal 
prosperity of the country, reforming abuses, intro- 
ducing economy into the administration, the most 
minute details of which he himself examined, found- 
ing a second university at Abo, and erecting schools 
in every part of his kingdom. The desire for 
extending the advantages of education to every 
class of his subjects, inspired him continually, 
amid all the distractions of foreign politics and 
wars; so that, even in the very last year of his 
life, when commencing his last campaign against 
Wallestein, he founded a university in Livonia, 
which he had permanently annexed to Sweden, that 
the Livonians might not be forced to cross the 
Baltic to Upsal. 

At the same time he continued to augment and 
discipline his army, and, on the expiration of the 
truce, sailed a second time to Livonia, reduced all 
the towns and fortresses in that province, and fought 
his first pitched battle at Walhoff, on the plains of 
Semigallia, where he routed Sapieha the Polish 
general, taking his artillery and many prisoners. 
The cavalry of the Polish army was strong in 
numbers and excellent in quality, and the general 
opinion of military men had hitherto been that it 

E 2 



52 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

was only on uneven, marshy, enclosed, or woody 
ground that infantry could meet cavalry on equal 
terms, while on wide plains where there was room 
for the rapid evolutions and fiery charges of horse, 
foot-soldiers must be swept away before them. 
Gustavus, — one of whose reforms had been to 
separate the musqueteers from the pikemen, so as 
to enable the two forces to support one another, 
instead of allowing the one, as formerly to be 
disabled by being surrounded by the other, — showed 
that a firm line of pikes in resolute hands formed 
a fence which cavalry could not penetrate ; and at 
this time laid the foundation of that system of 
tactics, which, modified and improved by subsequent 
experience, have led to such great results in the 
present century. 

The next year he overran Polish Prussia with the 
same celerity that he had subdued Livonia, treating 
the citizens of all the towns which surrendered to 
him with a moderation and humanity which forms 
a striking contrast to the general conduct of the 
commanders of that age. He made himself master 
of Pillau, Elbingen, and Marienburg, and of Mew 
and Dirschau on the Vistula, the two last of which 
were towns of so much importance that Sigismund 
made great efforts and even ventured on a pitched 
battle to recover them, but without success. In 
the winter Gastavus returned to Stockholm, where 
he laid before the Senate so full an account of all 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 53 

his past successes, of the ineffectual attempts he 
had made to procure peace, and of the means 
necessary to enable him to prosecute the war 
successfully, that they were completely won over to 
his views by his frankness and condescension, for 
he was probably the only sovereign in Europe at 
that time who took so just an idea of the constitu- 
tional rights of his subjects as to consult them on, 
and, as it were, ask their consent to the measures 
which he had in contemplation ; accordingly they 
granted him ample supplies of money and troops, 
so that before the next spring he had an army of 
reserve of 40,000 men ; a force sufficient to ensure 
the safety of his own dominions and to enable him 
to carry on the war on the opposite continent on 
a greater scale than had previously been in his 
power. 

His feeling of security at home encouraged him 
to form more extended views for the aggrandise- 
ment of his country abroad. He now laid before 
his Senate a plan for establishing commercial con- 
nections with the West Indies, that his subjects 
might share in the advantages which the other 
nations of Europe were beginning to derive from 
these new fountains of wealth, while the commercial 
marine so established would prove a nursery for his 
navy : another consideration which he pressed on 
his Senate with peculiar earnestness, was un- 
doubtedly one which influenced himself as much as 



54 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

either of the others, being the expectation that the 
friendly relations thus established with those coun- 
tries would afford Christians great opportunities of 
introducing the knowledge of the true religion 
among their savage inhabitants. In the same spirit 
he published an edict in favour of the persecuted 
Protestants in all countries, offering them an 
asylum in Sweden; a measure to which it is not 
impossible that he may have been in some degree 
stimulated by the benefits which England was 
already seen to derive from the settlement of the 
Flemish refugees, whom Elizabeth had encouraged 
to establish themselves in that country. In con- 
sequence of this edict many Germans fled from 
the persecution with which they were menaced, and 
from the districts in which war was adding its 
manifold miseries to civil oppression, and settled 
in Sweden, adding to its wealth by their industry, 
and to its strength by their numbers. The Senate 
cheerfully co-operated with their monarch in carry- 
ing out his enlightened views, granting the refugees 
immunity from taxes and public burdens during 
the first years of their settlement in the country, 
and promising them free licence to return to their 
native land at a more favourable season ; of which 
liberty very few ever availed themselves. 

Among the regulations which Gustavus intro- 
duced at this time was one for the suppression of 
duelling, a practice which had risen to such a 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 55 

height as to threaten the total subversion of all 
military discipline. Earlier in life he had himself 
given some countenance to the custom by his own 
conduct; for, having been provoked by a gallant 
Scotch officer of the name of Seaton, he forgot 
himself so far as to give him a blow at a public 
review in the sight of the whole army ; and after- 
wards, repenting of his hasty conduct, he voluntarily 
offered him the satisfaction which Seaton would 
have demanded if the person who had insulted him 
had been any other than the king. The Scot 
replied that such an offer from a king was sufficient 
satisfaction and honour for a subject, and falling 
at his feet, promised to live and die in his service. 
Now, however, Gustavus published an edict de- 
claring the fighting a duel a capital offence ; and^ 
when, a short time afterwards, two officers who had 
quarrelled solicited a suspension of the law in their 
favour, he granted their request, promising to attend 
himself to be a witness of their valour. At the 
appointed time and place he accordingly appeared 
with the Provost Marshal of the army, and com- 
manding the duellists to fight till one was slain, 
declared his intention of ordering the other for 
instant execution. There was but little inclination 
to prosecute the quarrel further with the certainty 
of so fatal a result to both combatants ; the King's 
firmness entirely put an end to the practice in 
his armies, and the courage of his officers was 



56 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPUUS. 

reserved to be displayed in its proper field against 
the enemy. 

The siege of Dantzic had .now lasted a consider- 
able time ; in the preceding year the citizens had 
made a gallant sally with their fleet, and had 
inflicted considerable loss on the Swedish squadron 
which the Elng had stationed to prevent all entrance 
to their harbour ; and Gustavus, finding himself 
unable to maintain the blockade by sea, was 
pressing his advances on the land side with great 
vigour, when he received so severe a wound from a 
musket-ball that for some time his life was almost 
despaired of ; and his generals, dispirited at his 
danger, were slackening in their efforts, when, after 
some unusual rains, the Vistula rose to such a 
height that the flood swept away the besiegers' 
works, and the temporary bridges which had been 
thrown across it, and compelled the Swedes to break 
up their camp and to raise the siege. 

The terrible Thirty Years War, as it was after- 
wards named from its unprecedented duration, had 
now been raging in Germany for ten years, when 
circumstances arose which drew Gustavus into its 
vortex, and determined the whole course of his 
subsequent life. 

Wallestein, who had lately been created Duke of 
Mecklenburg, had determined to occupy all the sea- 
ports of Pomerania as the only means of preventing 
the invasion of Germany which he anticipated. 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 57 

Stralsund, an important city opposite to the island 
of Kugen, claimed its privilege as an Imperial and 
Hanseatic free town, and refused to admit his 
troops. Exasperated at this denial, he ordered 
Field Marshal Arnheim to besiege it, swearing that 
he w^ould take it, if it were fastened by a chain of 
adamant to the heavens. Christian of Denmark 
sent some Scotch infantry to reinforce the garrison, 
and Gustavus, whose aid and protection the citizens 
had implored, sent a body of troops to their assis- 
tance, under the command of a Scotch officer, 
David Leslie, who afterwards carried the experience 
he had acquired in these wars to aid the rebels in 
his native land, where he broke the last hope of 
the Eoyalists on the fatal field of Philiphaugh. 
The defence made was so resolute that, though 
Wallestein himself arrived to take the command, 
he was forced to raise the siege, and this event, 
the first occasion on which that great commander 
was baffled, raised in no small degree the reputa- 
tion of Gustavus on the continent of Europe ; 
while the alliance to which it led between Sweden 
and the city which she had saved, greatly facilitated 
the subsequent invasion of Germany. 

Wallestein consoled himself for his disappoint- 
ment by falling on the Danish army and almost de- 
stroying it ; and Christian, disheartened by the loss, 
and jealous of Gustavus, showed a desire for peace, 
for which Wallestein, who dreaded the power of the 



58 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

Danish navy, was equally eager. Plenipotentiaries 
from the two powers met at Lubec at the beginning 
of the year 1629; to w^hich town Gustavus also sent 
ambassadors, who, however, were refused admission 
to the conferences, and all participation in the treaty. 
The troubles in Bohemia, which had been the 
original cause of the war, were terminated by the 
expulsion of the Elector Palatine, and his subsequent 
deprivation of all his territories ; and the Emperor 
Ferdinand had it now in his power to enlarge the 
peace which had been concluded at Lubec, so as to 
include all the belligerent powers in its provisions. 
There was neither state nor monarch who was not 
most anxious for such a measure. Wallestein him- 
self would have been glad to unite all Christendom 
in peace, that he might have had an opportunity of 
leading its confederated armies against the Turks ; 
but the Court of Eome refused to sanction any 
treaty which should grant toleration to the Pro- 
testants, and, instead of peace, stimulated the 
bigoted Ferdinand to more violent measures of 
hostihty and opression. Since the Diet of Augs- 
burg, much ecclesiastical property, previously held 
by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, had been secu- 
larised ; much had been made over to the Pro- 
testant Church. By a new decree, called the Edict 
of Restitution, it was suddenly ordered that all 
the property, which had thus been alienated from 
the Roman Catholic Church, should be instantly 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 59 

restored to it. This decree, though its operation 
was subsequently extended over the whole German 
Empire, was at first confined to Upper Germany 
and Wurtemburg; and commissioners and troops 
were poured into those districts to compel obedience 
to the Edict. They displayed no hesitation, no 
compunction, no mercy. The moment that the 
commissioners appeared in any place, the Protestant 
service was suspended, the churches were stripped 
of their bells, the altars and pulpits were thrown 
down, the Protestant Bibles seized and burnt, and 
gibbets were erected to terrify, or, if need be, to 
punish all who should venture to disobey or to 
resist. In Bohemia, the Emperor proceeded to 
still more furious measures, for there an additional 
edict was published, that all women of the Protes- 
tant or Evangelical persuasion, as it was called, who 
had married Roman Catholics, should be banished, 
though this decree was subsequently so far modified 
that they were allowed to remain in the country 
during the lifetime of their husbands. 

It was evident, that nothing less than the entire 
destruction of the Protestant religion was deter- 
mined on, and the German Protestants in conse- 
quence turned their eyes towards the king of 
Sweden. Wallestein, who was no less apprehensive 
of his entering Germany, than they were desirous 
of it, endeavoured to prevent it by rousing Sigis- 
mund of Poland to greater exertions ; and sent 



60 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

him a reinforcement of 10,000 men under Arnheim, 
whom he charged to drive Gustavus out of Poland, 
adding, that if he failed, he should himself under- 
take the task, 

Arnheim, having been joined by Sirot; a French 
of&cer of the highest reputation, and by the Polish 
general Conospoliski, conducted himself with great 
activity, and a severe battle took place near 
Marienverder on the Vistula, in which, though 
Gustavus behaved with the greatest personal intre- 
pidity, having his hat shot off by Sirot himself, and 
even having been for a moment prisoner to a body 
of Polish cavalry, who were ignorant of the value 
of their prize, he was at last forced to retreat 
with the loss of some of his artillery. He accord- 
ingly retired to the camp at Marienburg, where he 
entrenched himself with such skill that, when a 
few days afterwards Sigismund himself arrived 
with a considerable additional body of troops, it 
was found wholly impracticable to force his posi- 
tion; and the one or two attempts which were 
made upon it were repulsed with heavy loss to 
the attacking Poles. 

The war with Poland was, however, not destined 
to last long. Eichelieu, who had now attained to 
the supreme direction of affairs in France, was 
beginning to adopt anew the system of politics 
which had been almost forgotten since the death 
of Henry IV., and to turn all his views towards the 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 01 

one object of checking and depressing the power 
of the House of Austria. "With this design, he 
offered his mediation to the King of Poland, sent 
the celebrated Capuchin, Father Joseph, to urge 
Gustavus to moderation, and to tempt him by 
representations of the danger to which the minor 
Pinces of Germany were exposed from the ambition 
of the Emperor, to choose rather to go to the assist- 
ance of the Duke of Bavaria and his confederates, 
than to continue to press a discomfited enemy, like 
the King of Poland, to his utter ruin. Accordingly, 
peace for six years was concluded, between Sweden 
and Poland ; leaving Gustavus in possession of the 
greater part of his conquests, and at leisure to 
turn his attention to those more important events 
in which the general welfare of the whole of Eastern 
Europe was concerned. Father Joseph at the 
same time inflicted a second wound of almost equal 
importance upon the Emperor, by so working on 
his mind, by representations of the extortions and 
rapacity of Wallestein's troops, and of the secret 
and ambitious designs of the Duke himself, that 
he prevailed upon him to deprive that Prince of 
his command ; and so to discard his ablest general 
at the very moment when he had the most pressing 
occasion for his services. 

There is nothing more remarkable in the history 
of this long contest than the manner in which 
rehgion and politics mingled with and counteracted 



62 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

each other. The war was undertaken by the 
Emperor avowedly with the object of checking the 
encroachments which the Eeformation was making 
upon the Roman Catholic religion ; yet we find the 
Pope, in his character of a temporal sovereign, so 
much alarmed at the extent of the power in the 
north of Italy possessed and claimed by the 
Emperor, that his hatred of heretics was inferior 
to his dread of so dangerous a neighbour. He 
feared, as he had some reason to fear, that his 
triumph might be more dangerous to Rome than 
his defeat ; and, influenced by the same views, 
Richelieu, a cardinal of the Romish Church, did 
not scruple to ally himself with a prince whose 
sole object was the downfall of that Church, against 
one whose avowed purpose was its restoration to 
its former power and dignity. 

Gustavus had now resolved to invade Germany, 
and by decisive measures to bring the war to a 
termination. According to his usual practice he 
consulted the Swedish Senate, opened his views to 
them, and requested their concurrence. The support 
which he received was not at first unhesitating 
or unanimous. Oxenstiern himself, who on more 
than one occasion, to use his own language, sought 
to moderate the fire of his master's temperament 
with the ice of his own, thought an offensive war a 
too audacious measure, and distrusted the resources 
of Sweden, when they should come to be weighed 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAYUS ADOLPHUS. 63 

in the balance against those of the Emperor of all 
Germany. Others, whom the Minister's hesitation 
encouraged to urge their scruples freely, thought 
that the German Princes who were menaced by 
Ferdinand, if they could defend themselves with 
the aid of Gustavus, could defend themselves with- 
out it, while if they could not, they would only 
involve him in their ruin; — that, as the Baltic pro- 
tected them from invasion, so it made any aggres- 
sion on their part unjustifiable ; and that, if they 
remained quiet,«-they themselves were in no danger. 
It was argued, on the other hand, that the 
assistance which the Emperor had sent to Sigis- 
mund was a sufficient insult to, and proof of a 
hostile disposition towards Sweden to justify the 
strongest measures. That if the German Princes 
were left to themselves, they were manifestly un- 
equal to maintain a successful contest with the 
Emperor; who, after he had subdued them, would 
turn his arms against Sweden, when it could no 
longer have an ally left, but would only, by its 
almost insular position, obtain the respite of being 
devoured last. That the boldest policy was the 
safest ; if they waited the Emperor's attack in 
Sweden itself, defeat would be destruction ; if they 
should be beaten in Germany their retreat was 
secure, and the Baltic would afford an impregnable 
line of defence. 

By such arguments, the King brought the Senate 



64 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

over to his opinion, and, when they had determined 
on the invasion, there was no lukewarmness in 
providing him with everything requisite to ensure 
success. Yet, if we compare the magnitude of the 
enterprise which was now to be undertaken with 
the means employed, the one appears strangely 
disproportionate to the other; for Gustavus was 
'about to assail the combined power of Spain and 
Austria, and of the whole of Eoman Catholic 
German}^ while his entire army, including 8000 
recruits under Oxenstiern, w^hom he stationed 
partly as a guard and partly as a reserve in East 
Prussiaf did not exceed 27,000 men ; and even 
of this small force, a very large portion were 
foreigners, chiefly English and Scotch. The wars 
in which he had already been engaged, slight as 
the loss with which they were attended had been, 
must have been a heavy drain on the resources of 
Sweden, such as they were in that age, before that 
country would have been contented with furnishing 
so small a number of its own citizens for the service 
of their great monarch. 

Before leaving his kingdom on an expedition 
which would necessitate a long absence from it, 
and which could not fail to be attended with such 
danger as must make his return uncertain, Gustavus 
directed his attention most carefully to providing 
for the regular administration of its affairs. The 
Council of State he erected into a kind of regency; 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 65 

the management of the revenues and finances of 
the nation he entrusted to the Palatine of the 
Rhine, John Casimir, his brother-in-law ; and when 
all was ready for his departure, he appeared in the 
Diet at Stockholm to make his last address to his 
assembled Senate ; his only daughter, then a child 
of four years old, the same Christina who afterwards 
abdicated the Swedish throne, and whose subse- 
quent eccentricities afforded such diversion to, and 
whose licentiousness gave grounds for, such scandal 
throughout Europe, had already been formally 
acknowledged as his successor. Her father, now 
on this last visit to the States, as the Swedish 
Senate was called, bore her in his arms, and ob- 
tained from them a renewal of their oath of allegi- 
ance to her in case of his own death. If he should 
fall, he hoped to leave them cause to bless his 
memory, by bequeathing to them the blessings of 
civil and religious freedom, which it was the object 
of his intended enterprise to secure. 

It was at the end of May that he thus addressed 
them. On the 24th of June — the very day on which, 
exactly a century before, the confession of Augsburg 
had been presented to Charles the Fifth — he landed 
near Penemtinde, and his first act on German 
ground was to throw himself on his knees and 
thank God aloud for the protection which he had 
thus far vouchsafed to himself and his expedition ; 
admonishing some of his officers whose remarks he 



66 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

overheard, that " a good Christian could not be a 
bad soldier," and that *' the man who had prayed to 
his God had already completed the most important 
half of his day's work." 

In such a spirit as this it was that he was pre- 
paring to lead into Germany an army such as had 
never before been seen in that country ; Wallestein 
and the other great imperial generals were super- 
stitious, but not religious : the Providence in whom 
they trusted, according to their ideas and sayings, 
favoured not the humble Christian, but the strong 
battalions. Led by such chiefs, the of&cers of their 
armies were extortionate, licentious, and profuse ; 
the common soldiers were pitiless plunderers, 
ravishersj and murderers ; led by Gustavus, his 
army, even in the intoxicating hour of victory, was 
orderly, temperate, and merciful : daily did each 
regiment form round its chaplain in the morning to 
implore the protection of the God of Battles ; in the 
evening, to thank him for its safety. The imperial 
soldier, provided his military duties were discharged 
with courage and precision, was subjected to no 
further restraint, his nights were spent in revelry 
and gaming, while the means for the gratification 
of these passions were sought at the expense of the 
inhabitants of the wretched district in which he 
might happen to be encamped. Hardly could any 
complaint from a peaceful citizen against a trooper 
reach the ear of the general ; more hardly and more 



THE LITE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 67 

rarely still did it meet with any but a contemptuous 
reception. In the Swedish camp, on the other 
hand, the strictness of the requirements of military 
discipline was not counterbalanced ■ by any relax- 
ation of the laws of peace : justice was not for a 
moment blinded to crime or even to disorder ; 
gaming and quarrelling among the soldiers them- 
selves was repressed or punished, as well as all acts 
of rapine or violence towards the people of the 
country ; and the natives of the districts which had 
invited them could hail their victories without 
finding the successes of their friends almost as 
disastrous to themselves as the triumphs of their 
enemies. The virtues which Gustavus exacted from 
others he practised himself. The imperial generals 
maintained their dignity by all the appliances of 
luxury and the most profuse exhibitions of wealth 
and splendour ; Wallestein himself, though person- 
ally indifferent to such things, was served in gold, 
and waited upon by officers of the noblest birth in 
Germany. From the camp of Gustavus the temp- 
tations to intemperance were banished equally with 
the vice itself. The equipage of the king's own 
tent, the vessels of his own table, were of the 
plainest description; and their monarch's severity 
was rendered palatable to the soldiers by the evi- 
dence of their own senses, that he was not more 
indulgent to himself than to the meanest trooper 
in his service. 

r 2 



68 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

When the news of the Swedes having effected 
their landing reached Vienna, it made no great 
impression on the advisers of the Emj)eror. The 
common language held among the courtiers was 
" that Gustavus was but a king of snow, who would 
melt to pieces as he advanced southward;" and 
Torquato Conti, the imperial general in Pomerania 
(a man of such penetration that he is said to have 
been the first to discern the talents of Mazarin, and 
to have been the founder of his fortune by recom- 
mending him, when a very young man, to the Pope), 
boasted that he would find his troops very different 
enemies from those whom he had hitherto encoun- 
tered, and that, " He would soon learn that he had left 
his laurels in the groves of Prussia." Wallestein's 
language, before he was deprived of his command, 
had been equally contemptuous ; Tilly alone appre- 
ciated the character of the man and the importance 
of the coming struggle, and warned the Diet at 
Eatisbon, that they would for the future have to 
deal with an enemy of great courage and great 
skill ; that his army, though drawn from so many 
different nations, was united in attachment to and 
confidence in him ; that, to use his own comparison, 
" He was a gamester, in playing with whom not to 
lose would be to win a great deal." 

Before advancing into the interior of the country, 
Gustavus took care to secure the base of his ope- 
rations by making himself master of the most 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 69 

important towns on the coast. Bogislaus, duke of 
Pomerania, a feeble and superannuated prince, was 
desirous to remain neutral; but Gustayus, declaring, 
in the words of Scripture, that "he who was not 
with him was against him," compelled him to take 
a decided part, and to admit him into his towns. 
Accordingly the gates of Stettin, the capital of the 
duchy at the mouth of the Oder, were opened to 
him; Storgard, "Wolgast, and other strong towns, 
received him, one after another ; and Conti, unable 
to check his progress, could only wreak his ven- 
geance on the unfortunate Pomeranians by ravaging 
their country ; a piece of inhumanity which 
strengthened Gustavus by driving many Pomera- 
nians, through hopes of safety or revenge, to enlist 
in his army, and by exciting the Senate to furnish 
him with a large pecuniary contribution towards the 
expenses of the campaign ; and, shortly after, to 
acquiesce in a treaty of perpetual alliance, defensive 
and offensive, between Sweden and Pomerania, and 
in the latter country being mortgaged to the former 
for the expenses of its protection during this war. 

It was plain to the most confident of the Impe- 
rialists that they had formed a very erroneous esti- 
mate of their new enemy. A few months before, 
Wallestein had not condescended to reply to a letter 
sent to him by Gustavus; but now the Emperor 
himself thought proper to endeavour to open a 
correspondence with him, and sent an envoy to his 



70 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

camp with a letter remonstrating with him in not 
uncourteous language (except that it did not give 
him the title of King) for invading the empire, the 
internal quarrels and divisions of which did not 
affect either him or his dominions ; inviting him to 
peace ; and threatening, if he declined it and per- 
sisted in interfering in matters which concerned the 
Germanic body alone, to postpone the chastisement 
of all other enemies, and to direct the whole force 
of the empire against the Swedish army. Gustavus 
excused himself from sending any written reply at 
present to this epistle, alleging to the envoy that he 
had received a wound from an eagle (the armorial 
bearing of the Emperor), which must prevent him 
from holding a pen ; at the same time the Roman 
Catholic electors of the empire addressed another 
letter to him, giving him now the title of King, 
though they had previously affected to treat him as 
an usurper, and urging him to evacuate the empire, 
and, if he had any grounds of complaint, to rely on 
the humanity and justice of the Emperor. Gustavus 
received the letter and pursued his conquests ; after 
some weeks of uninterrupted success he sent a 
written reply to the electors, justifying his invasion, 
but professing his willingness to make peace on 
such conditions as should be safe and honourable 
to himself and his allies ; and, later in the year, 
nearly three months after the date of the Emperor's 
letter, he replied to that also, attributing the com- 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 71 

mencement of hostilities to the Emperor himself, 
who had, without provocation and without warning, 
attacked him in Poland and in Prussia; but repeating 
the same expressions of willingness to agree to a 
general peace that were contained in his letter to 
the electors. 

While these events were taking place, Conti was 
making vigorous and sldlful efforts to check the 
advance of the Swedes, and to render the advan 
tages that they had gained barren and unprofitable ; 
but all his efforts were frustrated by the vigilance 
of Gustavus. He made an attempt upon Stettin, 
in which he lost a great number of men. With no 
better success he endeavoured to throw a re- 
inforcement into Colbergen, which Gustavus was 
besieging, and which was of great importance, as 
being the magazine in which the Imperialists had 
stored the plunder which they had collected in the 
last two years' campaigns. It was now November ; 
the imperial troops, accustomed to a less rigorous 
climate than that of the coasts of the Baltic, could 
hardly keep the field ; (indeed the winter months 
had usually been a period of total inactivity, and 
of a formal or tacit suspension of arms). Conti 
was therefore desirous to retire into winter quarters, 
and would gladly have entered into a temporary 
truce with that view; but Gustavus rejected all 
overtures which had such an object. He had 
provided his army beforehand with warm dresses 



72 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

of sheepskin, and replied to the imperial com- 
missioners that "the Swedes were soldiers in 
winter as well as in summer." He had been en- 
gaged for some time in strengthening the fortifica- 
tions of Stettin, the defences of which bore no 
proportion to its importance ; and now he employed 
the greater part of his army as masons and 
pioneers, replying to one of his captains, who 
complained of the obstacles offered to such works 
by the severity of the season, that the earth was 
always frozen to the indolent and idle. 

Conti resigned his command, and was succeeded 
b}'- the Count de Schomberg, who, a month later, 
resigned the chief command to Tilly. Tilly, on 
the dismissal of Walle stein, had been appointed 
generalissimo of the imperial armies. He was now 
seventy-two years of age, and, though his whole 
life had been passed in war, though he had com- 
manded in no less than thirty- six battles, he had 
never suffered a defeat. He had but lately ex- 
changed the Bavarian Service for that of the 
Emperor, and he brought to the aid of his new 
master a military reputation second to none, a 
degree of experience and skill that could hardly 
be surpassed, and of cruelty that was as yet im- 
suspected perhaps even by himself. He was faithful 
to his sovereign, and devoted to his church; but 
his loyalty was unreasoning slavery ; his religion 
persecuting bigotry. His political genius was of 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 73 

a high order ; but, unfortunately for his master, the 
advice that he gave was seldom followed. In 
person and dress he was said to be like the duke of 
Alva, and the terror which such a resemblance was 
calculated to excite, was but too well justified by 
his conduct. 

Gustavus commenced the year 1631, by entering 
into a treaty on perfectly equal terms with France. 
It had long been impeded by arrogant claims of 
superiority on the part of that nation to which 
Gustavus refused to submit ; these were now 
abandoned, Sweden promised to maintain an army 
of 30,000 men in Germany, and France agreed to 
pay Sweden a large yearly subsidy ; while, if 
Gustavus were victorious, he was bound not to 
disturb either the Constitution of the Empire, or 
the Roman Catholic religion, in the places which 
he should conquer. England and Holland acceded 
to this treaty; and even many of the Roman Ca- 
tholic princes, though they declined the invitation 
which was sent to them to become formal parties 
to it, yet viewed the progress of the Swedish arms 
with less apprehension now that the security of 
their religion was guaranteed by so powerful a 
sovereign of their persuasion as the King of France. 

Colbergen fell in the early part of the year ; but 
the limits of this sketch will not allow me, nor 
if they did, would it be worth while, to enumerate 
even the names of the different towns and fortresses 



74 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

which were taken one after another, to the number, 
it is said, of eighty in the first eight months after 
Gustavus landed in Germany. 

Tilly, who had been protecting his troops from 
the weather in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, brought 
his army from thence to relieve Damin; but, 
finding that town had capitulated before his arrival, 
he turned upon New Brandenburgh where Knip- 
hausen was with 2000 men ; and, having intercepted 
despatches from Gustavus, in which that general 
was ordered to withdraw his men, took the place, 
put the garrison to the sword, with the exception 
of the commander himself and a few others, and 
gave up the inhabitants to the mercy of his soldiers. 
Any loss of reputation which the Swedes incurred 
by this disaster was speedily effaced by the capture 
of the important city of Frankfort. It was by 
far the most important place in that part of 
Germany, and Schomberg himself had been placed 
in it by Tilly with a picked garrison of 8000 men. 
The fortifications however were far from perfect; 
and GustavuSj without sparing time for the more 
regular preliminary operations of a siege, imme- 
diately on his arrival under the walls, decided on 
assaulting it at once, burst open the gates with 
petards, and forced his way, sword in hand, into 
the middle of the city, while other storming parties 
scaled the walls in a different quarter. For the 
first time Gustavus found himself unable to restrain 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 75 

his men : burning to avenge the cruelties which 
the Imperialists had committed at New Bran- 
denburgh, they in some respects imitated them. 
The unarmed citizens indeed were safe from their 
violence, but the garrison found no mercy. Great 
numbers had fallen in the assault, but those who 
had escaped were slaughtered in cold blood. To 
their petitions for quarter, the stern answer was 
given, that "New Brandenburgh quarter" was all 
that they should find : they were cut down, they 
were driven into the Oder, none were left alive in 
the town, and very few escaped from it. The loss 
of the Swedes did not exceed three hundred men. 

Laudsperg was not as rich or considerable a city 
as Frankfort, but as a fortress it was almost equally 
important, lying as it did on the borders of Prussia 
and Poland, and threatening the communications 
of Gustavus while it remained in the hands of his 
enemies. It was strongly garrisoned with nearly 
5000 men, who in the last campaign had twice 
repulsed his attacks. He now conceived the idea 
of surprising it ; taking with him a small body of 
men actually inferior in numbers to the garrison 
within the town, by a rapid march of forty miles 
in two days ; transporting his artillery by roads 
which were supposed to be impassable for heavy 
guns, he arrived under the walls before any intelli- 
gence arrived of his having quitted Frankfort, and 
reduced it so speedily, that it surrendered on the 



76 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

16th of April, only twelve days after the fall of 
Frankfort. 

Tilly had been on his march to relieve Frankfort, 
when the news reached him of its capture ; on 
which he retraced his steps, and sought to console 
himself for his loss by pressing the siege of Mag- 
deburg with increased vigour. Magdeburg was an 
independent city, lying on the Elbe, between the 
Electorates of Saxony and Brandenburg. The 
name means the Maiden Town, and it bore for its 
arms a crowned virgin; representing Yenus who had 
been its tutelar deity, till Charlemagne converted the 
Saxons to Christianity, and the goddess of Cyprus 
into the Virgin Mary. It was rich, populous, and 
free ; but the extent of its walls was too great for 
it to have ever been thoroughly fortified, and the 
garrison, scarcely exceeding 2000 men, was quite 
inadequate to the defence of the place. Pappenhiem 
and Tilly had invested it early in March, and they 
were favoured by a small party in the town, from 
whom they learnt the scantiness of its means of 
resistance. The governor, however, General Falk- 
enberg, held out with great resolution, looking 
confidently for succour, which Gustavus was well 
aware of the importance of bringing to him ; but, 
before marching to his relief, it was necessary for 
him to negotiate with the Electors of Brandenburg 
and Saxony for permission to pass through portions 
of their territory. It was some time before he 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 77 

could overcome the fear of the Emperor entertained 
by the Prussian Prince, and he was still urging 
his arguments on the Saxon when Magdeburg fell. 
Tilly had been thundering on the city for many 
daj^s with heavy batteries, and had compelled the 
citizens to abandon many of their out-works, when, 
fearing lest the approach of Gustavus, (who, while 
negotiating with the Elector of Saxony, had 
advanced as far as Potsdam, and was now within 
three days' march) should compel him to raise the 
siege, he resolved on storming the defences that 
remained, and on the 10th of May, at daybreak, 
Pappenheim led the attack against the fated city. 

All that gallantry could do, was done by Falken- 
berg ; but his ammunition was almost exhausted, the 
garrison was inadequate to the defence of so many 
assailable points as the wide extent of the walls 
presented ; and it is even said that traitorous 
citizens had impeded their march in some direc- 
tions by drawing chains across the streets. The 
attack succeeded at all points. Who shall describe 
the horrors that ensued ? 

Quis cladem illius noctis, quis funera fando 
Explicet ? 

Truly has Schiller spoken of the scene as one for 
which history has no language, poetry no pencil. All 
the atrocities that lust, all that revenge, all that 
superstition more pitiless than either could devise. 



78 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

were poured at once upon the miserable inhabi- 
tants. The courage of the soldier, the unarmed 
submission of the citizen, the dignity of the matron, 
the innocence of the maiden, the helplessness of 
the nurseling infant, were alike unable to shield 
them from death, and from outrage more terrible 
than any death. The husband could not defend 
the wife, nor the mother protect her daughter ; the 
very temples of God were equally powerless, and 
streamed with the blood of dishonoured and murdered 
women. With devilish joy the conquerors gloated 
over their varieties and refinements of cruelty; 
some hacked their victims limb from limb, some 
threw children alive into the flames of the burning 
houses, some amused themselves by pinning living 
babies to their mothers' breast with their lances. 
The streets were choked with the dead and the 
dying ; the rapid course of the Elbe was impeded 
with the corpses which rose above its waters ; 400 
only, the richest of the citizens, were saved by the 
avarice of some officers, who preferred their ransom 
to their slaughter ; two churches and a few houses 
alone remained unconsumed by the fire which had 
destroyed the rest of the town. Since the wrath of 
God had descended upon Jerusalem, no such utter 
destruction had destroyed both citizens and city. 

Of those unheard-of barbarities, the shame and 
the guilt does not rest upon the common soldiers 
alone : Tilly took no measures to check them. 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 79 

Pappenheim expressed an exulting approval of 
them. They were deeply avenged ; the two impe- 
rialist generals had hitherto enjoyed a career of 
unbroken success and glory. That career was 
ended ; Tilly's arms were no longer invincible, and 
a year had not elapsed when, after many reverses, 
he was borne mortally wounded from the field of 
his defeat on the Lech. Pappenheim had no better 
fortune ; and their master, the Emperor; who re- 
ceived the sad tidings with inhuman exultation, 
found that triumph so used had produced him 
nothing but more numerous and more desperate 
enemies. 

Gustavus resolved to leave nothing undone to 
take a sufficient revenge for the horrors which he 
had been unable to prevent. And, having now 
compelled the Elector of Brandenburg to leave 
Spandau in his hands, and to give him free entrance 
into Custrin, he found himself able to adopt a 
bolder line of operations. He reinstated John 
Albert in the Duchy of Mechlenburgh, of which he 
had been stripped when the Emperor conferred it 
on Wallestein ; and, having received large supplies 
of money from France, he proceeded to pursue 
Tilly with great energy. He took Havelburg and 
Werben, with the garrisons which had been left to 
defend them ; and at this latter place he surrounded 
himself with intrenchments, the remains of which 
exist to this day, to attest the skill with which they 



80 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

were planned. The position thus taken up was too 
important for Tilly to behold with indifference ; and 
too strong for him to force. He attacked it, and 
was repulsed with some discredit, and with great 
loss ; for which he sought to console himself by 
ravaging Saxony. This again was a measure inju- 
rious to the Emperor's interest, although executed 
in obedience to his orders ; since it only compelled 
the Elector to seek the alliance of Gustavus, as his 
sole protection from complete destruction. 

While these events were taking place, Gustavus 
received two most welcome reinforcements. His 
Queen crossed the Baltic with 8000 men, and her 
voj^age bore with itself the omens of success, disem- 
barking, as she did, while a public festival was 
being solemnised at Wolgast, to celebrate the anni- 
versary of her husband's landing with his army 
in the preceding year. The Marquis of Hamilton 
too arrived from England with 6000 men. A second 
attempt of Tilly to force the King's lines, was not 
more successful than the former ; and he now found 
Gustavus's assertion to be true, that he could not be 
compelled to fight, except at such times and on such 
ground as he himself should choose. 

Tilly retired towards Leipsic, on which Gustavus 
broke up his camp to observe his motions ; but, 
though he pursued him with vigour, he could not 
save Leipsic, the fortifications of which city were 
in such a state as made resistance hopeless. It 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 81 

was known that large reinforcements were on their 
way to join Tilly, and, after much deliberation, 
Gustavus resolved to attack him before they could 
arrive. Leipsic had surrendered on the 5th of 
September, and on the 7th, Gustavus with the 
Swedish and Saxon armies crossed the Mulda to 
compel the conqueror to fight a battle for the pre- 
servation of his conquest. 

It had been no part of Tilly's plan to bring on a 
battle before the arrival of the additional forces 
which he was expecting, but he allowed his sounder 
judgment to be overruled by the impatience of 
Pappenheim. He burned too to show that he was 
not, as some of Wallestein's admirers had hinted, 
afraid to encounter the King of Sweden. 

The battle of Leipsic, or Breitenfeldt, was fought 
on the 7th of September, and seldom have armies 
met to decide a more important contest, for the 
stake was no less than the fate of Germany, and 
of the Protestant religion on the continent of 
Europe. If Gustavus had been beaten, his allies 
would have fallen from him, he must have retired 
to his own kingdom, and there would have been no 
power left, able to resist for a moment the will of 
the Emperor, and of the priests whose creature he 
was. His victory gave courage to the Protestants 
in every part of Europe, and raised a spirit that for 
sixteen years after his death, maintained an equal 
struggle with the League, and finally secured liberty 



82 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

and freedom of conscience to all who liad taken a 
part in the contest. 

The numbers of the rival armies were nearly 
equal, amounting to about 35,000 men on each side; 
and the field of battle was an extensive undulating 
plain, offering but few advantages to either party. 
Tilly's infantr}^ was drawn up in two lines, with a 
third line in reserve, on a slightly rising ground, 
with his artillery in front, except a small battery 
of heavy guns on the right. Early in the morning 
the King advanced in two columns to the attack ; 
the right column consisting of Swedes and British, 
the left of Saxons. In their front was a small 
streamlet called the Lober, and the moment that 
the Scotch regiments who formed the van of the 
Swedish column had crossed it, they were furiously 
attacked by Pappenheim with his cuirassiers. The 
Scotch however were themselves supported by 
cavalry ; they repulsed their assailants, and con- 
tinued their advance towards the small hamlet of 
Podelaity. Pappenheim set fire to the hamlet, as 
Menschikoff did to Bouliouk, at the battle of the 
Alma, and again attacked the advancing column, 
which deployed into line, and presented a front on 
which the imperial cavalry made repeated but fruit- 
less charges, till at last it was repulsed with severe 
loss, leaving a large body of infantry, which had 
been sent to its assistance, isolated in the middle 
of the plain. Tilly's regiments were arrayed in the 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 83 

old style; with a dense mass of spearmen in the 
centre, and lines of musqueteers on the outside, 
so that the spearmen could not protect the shooters, 
while their spears were rendered useless hy the 
line of their comrades in their front. "Without a 
moment's delay the regiment was charged hy the 
Swedish cavalry, and the musqueteers were cut 
down ; the spearmen, denuded of their supporters, 
were attacked by musqueteers, completely routed, 
and their colonel, the Duke of Holstein, who, strange 
to say, was a Protestant, was slain. 

The Swedish army was now in two lines, as well 
as that of the imperialists; but the distance between 
the Swedish lines was greater, and in front of the 
second line was a reserve of artillery. The 
cavalry in both armies was drawn up on the flanks ; 
and the Swedes had also some cavalry in their reserve. 
Gustavus commanded the right wing, Arnheim led 
the Saxons on the left; the second line and the 
reserve were under British officers. Colonel Hep- 
burn a Scotchman, and Colonel Hall. After a 
short cannonade, Tilly charged the whole line of 
his enemies at once ; the Swedes with their heavy 
fire and steady front beat back his attack ; but the 
Saxons were broken in a moment, the Elector 
himself fled from the field, thinking that all was 
lost ; and messengers were despatched to Munich 
and Vienna with news that the victory was gained. 
Tilly checked his troops in their pursuit of the 

g2 



84 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

flying Saxons, in order to fall on the flank of the 
Swedes ; but Horn, who was on their left, had 
already brought up three regiments from the second 
line, and bore back the impetuous onset of the 
Austrians with firmness and complete success. 
Gustavus availed himself of the confusion into 
which the imperialists were thrown, and, advancing 
his first line, took the artillery in front of the 
enemy's line and turned it against themselves ; 
Tilly, undaunted amid his misfortunes, made one 
last stand with his reserve, and at last retired with 
the relics of four regiments in good order to a wood 
in the rear of his position, where night protected 
him from any further pursuit. But he had lost 
7000 men in killed and wounded, while 3000 
prisoners, 30 guns, 100 standards, and all the 
baggage of the defeated army were trophies of 
victory in the hands of the conquerors. The 
Saxons lost 2000 men, the Swedes 700. Tilly, who 
had been wounded in the battle, retreated towards 
Halle; but so rapidly had his army dispersed on 
its defeat, that he could hardly count two thousand 
men round his standards. The reputation of his 
invincibility was gone, and with it the hopes of 
plunder and all the motives which could attract men 
to the service of a leader whose barbarities had 
rendered him universally odious. 

In the evening the Elector of Saxony returned 
to the Swedish camp ; where, far from reproaching 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 85 



him with the misconduct of his troops, Gustavus 
thanked him for having advised the hattle. The 
Elector, in his exultation, promised to secure for 
him the Eoman crown, which Ferdinand was 
seeking to have conferred upon his own son ; and 
the two Princes proceeded to concert measures to 
enable them to reap the complete fruits of the 
victory. It was decided that the Saxons should 
invade Bohemia, and that the Swedes should march 
through Franconia towards the Rhine. Gustavus 
could prosecute his advance with safety, as his 
victory had not only encouraged several of the 
smaller independent Princes to declare themselves 
on his side, but had struck terror into those who 
were secretly jealous of or openly hostile to him ; 
so that Christian made public rejoicings at Copen- 
hagen, and Sigismund of Poland sent ambassadors 
to congratulate him. His march was one unvaried 
and unchecked triumph ; some towns opened their 
gates to him of their own accord, others refused 
and were carried by storm, but none offered any 
successful resistance ; and, before the end of the 
year, he had made himself master of Erfurt, Wer- 
theim, Wurzburg, Marienburg, and Frankfort on 
the Maine. Tilly, who had retired into Brunswick 
after the battle of Breitenfeldt, having drawn the 
garrisons from the towns in Lower Saxony, and 
having been reinforced by 12,000 men from Lor- 
raine, in vain endeavoured to save Wurzburg ; but. 



yt) THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

tliough eager to efface the recollection of the defeat 
which he had sustained, he was strictly forhidden 
to risk a battle, and could scarcely even delay the 
progress of the conqueror. The Duke of Lorraine 
himself, being subject to the orders of no superior 
ofl6.cer, made a feeble endeavour to withstand him ; 
but his army was routed, and the example which 
he set to his troops was that of precipitate flight. 
He wrote a submissive letter to Gustavus, who 
had more important objects in view than the 
chastisement of a Prince who had neither power' 
nor courage ; and with such contempt was he 
regarded by all classes, that as he was retreating 
through a small village, a peasant struck his horse. 
" Eide faster. Sir," said the clown, " you must 
make more haste than that if you mean to escape 
from the great King of Sweden." 

At Frankfort Gustavus was jpined by the Land- 
grave of Hesse Cassel, who had reduced the greater 
part of Westphalia and Lower Saxony, with 10,000 
men ; and, in the mean time, his general, Tott, had 
succeeded in restoring the whole of Mecklenburg 
to John Albert. What remained of Magdeburg 
was recovered by Banier, who, with 8000 men, 
was still on the Elbe. The King now prepared to 
cross the Ehine, the passage of which he forced 
at Oppenheim, where his precipitation and dis- 
regard to his personal safety, very nearly threw 
him into the hands of a body of Spanish horse, 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 87 

who attacked him the moment that he landed on 
the western side of the river. It was with great 
difficulty that he was saved from their superior 
numbers ; but at last he made good his position, 
and proceeded to invest Mayence. Seventy years 
afterwards, when an English general had in nearly 
the same country rivalled his triumphs and his 
renown, a column surmounted by an armed lion 
was raised to mark the spot where the champion 
of Europe had first landed on the left bank of the 
mighty river. 

Mayence resisted but a few days. Manheim was 
taken by the skill of Duke Bernard of Weimar. 
Spires and Landau opened their gates, when 
Gustavus closed his glorious campaign by retiring 
to Mayence, and taking up his winter quarters in 
that city. During the winter, attempts were made 
by more powers than one, to check his progress 
by negotiations. His advance towards the Ehine, 
after the capture of Wurzburg, instead of into 
Bavaria and Austria, had raised suspicions of his 
ultimate designs in more than one quarter. 
Kichelieu himself regarded with suspicion his 
advance towards the French frontier, which seemed 
inconsistent with the objects which he was un- 
derstood to have in view ; and was inclined to 
allow the Duke of Bavaria, and the inferior Princes 
of the League, to adopt a complete neutrality. 
But this did not suit the superior penetration of 



»» THE LIFE OF GUSTAYUS ADOLPHUS. 

Gustavus ; and, while the negotiations were pro- 
ceeding, he intercepted a letter from the Duke of 
Bavaria to Pappenheim, which proved that the 
Duke's only object in appearing to embrace such 
an idea, had been to gain time for more extensive 
militar}^ preparations. Early in January he was 
joined again by the Queen, who brought him a 
strong body of cavalry. In her society he spent 
some weeks, till in February he bade her farewell, 
broke up from his winter quarters, and marched 
towards the Upper Palatinate, where Tilly had 
defeated Horn, and taken Bamberg. Nuremburg 
received him with open arms, as he proceeded 
towards the Danube. Donauwerth was taken in 
a day; and he ascended the small river Lech, till 
he arrived at a spot near the small town of Baine, 
where Tilly was occupying a strongly fortified camp 
in the hopes of barring his further progress. That 
general had destroyed all the bridges, and flattered 
himself that the river, always deep and rapid, and 
now swollen by the melting of the Alpine snows, 
presented an impassable obstacle ; nor had he trusted 
only to this natural bulwark, but had planted 
batteries along the bank, and garrisons at differ- 
ent points up the river as far as Augsburg. His 
generals strongly advised Gustavus to pause before 
attempting to force such a position. Should he 
succeed in crossing the river, victory might not 
be decisive ; while defeat would be destruction to 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 89 

an army the retreat of which was cut off by such 
an obstacle in its rear. But the King, having by a 
personal reconnaissance discovered that his bank 
of the river was higher than the other, availed 
himself of this fact, to plant a heavy battery, with 
which he drove back Tilly's Bavarians, while he 
threw across the stream a bridge which he had 
secretly prepared. Higher up, a narrow ford 
passable for cavalry had been discovered ; and, 
the moment that the bridge was firm, the Swedes 
crossed the river at both points with great rapidity. 
At the very beginning of the battle, Tilly was 
mortally wounded ; Altringer, the second in com- 
mand, was disabled ; and the Duke of Bavaria, 
the only general who remained, retreated wath 
precipitation but in good order to Ingoldstadt, to 
which town Tilly had been removed, and where 
he died the next day. 

Augsburg was one of the earliest prizes of this 
victory. It surrendered on the 10th of April, 
only five days after the battle ; and then Gustavas 
turned northwards to the Danube to lay siege to 
Ingoldstadt, in his pursuit of the Duke of Bavaria ; 
but the garrison made a gallant resistance, during 
which he was exposed to great personal danger, 
having his horse killed under him by one cannon- 
ball, and the young Margrave of Baden slain at 
his side by another ; till finding that the Bavarians, 
in compliance with the dying advice of Tilly, had 



90 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

occupied Eatisbon also, he raised the siege, and 
returned towards Bavaria, to summon Munich, 
which surrendered at his approach, and in which 
he found a large treasure belonging to the Duke, 
and ample supplies of artillery and ammunition. 

He was now to cope with a new enemy. Ferdi- 
nand had been taught by the battle of Breitenfeldt 
to repent of having sacrificed Wallestein to his 
enemies; and his minister Questenberg opened a 
correspondence with the disgraced marshal. The 
negotiations proceeded slowly till the Emperor 
wrote with his own hand to entreat his discarded 
servant to forget what was past, and not to forsake 
him in the hour of adversity. It was not Walles- 
tein's purpose to refuse such solicitations ; he was 
well pleased to be recalled from the inactivity in 
which he had been so long lying ; at the same time, 
he showed himself fully conscious of the strength 
which he derived from the confessed weakness of 
the Emperor and the imperial armies. The con- 
ditions which he demanded amounted to an entire 
transference of all control over those armies from 
the Emperor to himself. His command over all 
the German forces was to be single and unlimited. 
The Emperor was not to approach them ; was to 
have no power to grant commissions or honours. 
Even the conquests that should be made were to 
be at the sole disposal of Wallestein. All that 
the Emperor was to have to do with the troops was 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 91 

to pay them ; while for the General's own pa}^, an 
imperial hereditary estate was to he assigned. The 
Duchy of Mecklenhurg was to he restored to him ; 
and his command was not to be abrogated without 
formal and timely notice. 

Ferdinand was in no condition to dispute these 
terms, which placed him at the mercy of his proud 
and injured subject. As soon as they were con- 
ceded, Wallestein raised his standard, and it soon 
became apparent, that, in one respect at least, he 
had not overrated his power. From every quarter 
soldiers flocked to join him. More than three 
hundred officers from every part of Austria, who 
had been deaf to the necessities of their country, 
while its resources were wielded by chiefs of less 
genius or inferior popularity, applied for com- 
missions, and desired to raise troops for the new 
generalissimo. Within three months he was at the 
head of 40,000 men ; and on the 4th of May, he 
opened the campaign, by driving Arnheim out of 
Prague, which that officer and the Elector of Saxony 
had taken in the preceding winter; the neighbouring 
cities submitted at the first summons, and Bohemia, 
was recovered as speedily as it had been lost. 

AVhile he was thus triumphing in Bohemia, 
Maximilian remained at Katisbon. Gustavus, whose 
army was numerically inferior to that of either of 
them, hastened to the Upper Palatinate, in the 
hopes of preventing their junction ; but, before he 



92 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

could arrive on their lines, the Duke of Bavaria 
had reached Egra, and united himself with 
"Wallestein. 

On the 29th of April Sigismond, King of Poland, 
the cousin and old enemy of Gustavus, died ; the 
question whom the Diet would elect as his suc- 
cessor was long in suspense ; and, though before 
the end of the 3'ear Vladislaus, the eldest son of 
the deceased sovereign, was elected, there are not 
wanting authors who assert that Gustavus might 
have obtained the vacant crown, and even that it 
was actually offered to him. 

The junction of Maximilian and Wallestein placed 
the latter at the head of 60,000 men; a force with 
w^hich Gustavus was in no condition to cope. He 
resolved, therefore, to follow the plan which he had 
before adopted with success, and to await in an 
entrenched camp the reinforcements which he knew 
were preparing for him. With the self-reliance of 
genius he even weakened his own army by detach- 
ing Hepburn with one body of men to Munich, to 
preserve that capital for him ; and by sending Horn 
and Banier, and Duke Bernard away on separate 
commands, to prevent his being stripped of his 
conquests. Hearing that a body of Spaniards was 
preparing to cross into Germany from the Mila- 
nese territory, he negotiated successfully with the 
Swiss to induce them to refuse such a force per- 
mission to pass through their country, and at the 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 93 

same time to permit him to enlist soldiers for his 
own army from among their nation; and then, 
taking and disarming one or two inferior towns on 
his way, he retired to Nuremburg, the neighbour- 
hood of which city he had selected, as affording the 
most desirable situation in Germany for the posi- 
tion which he had resolved to take up. It was well 
chosen. Being almost in the centre of Germany it 
covered alike his conquests on the Rhine, on the 
Danube, and on the Maine; while it kept his com- 
munications with his allies, and with the coasts of 
the Baltic, open under all circumstances. 

He had barely 20,000 men with him; not one- 
third of the hosts which were assembled under the 
banners of the Duke of Friedland — the title by 
which Wallestein was now generally known — but 
skill was destined to make up for the inferiority of 
numbers. The works which he had planned, sur- 
rounded the w^hole city and suburbs of Nuremburg ; 
a wide fosse was fortified with bastions and redoubts, 
and all the other means of resistance known to the 
engineers of that age ; and with such energy and 
rapidity was the work executed, while each indivi- 
dual soldier laboured under the eye of the king as 
if its completion depended on his own exertions, 
that, though Wallestein overtook him in little more 
than a fortnight from the commencement of ope- 
rations, he found the defences impregnable and 
bristling with upwards of 300 guns. 



94 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

Wallestein was too great a man to think it neces- 
sary to his reputation to attack troops so posted. 
" Battles enough," he said, " had been fought, and 
it was time to try another method." He resolved 
to show the King of Sweden that he also could 
raise entrenchments ; and accordingly he took up a 
position at Furt, about five miles to the south-west 
of Nuremberg, so as to narrow the channels through 
which Gustavus received his supplies, and reduce 
him by famine to quit the lines which he had con- 
trived with so much labour and skill. The rival 
plans led to a constant succession of skirmishes, in 
which Wallestein's superiority of numbers did not 
always insure him success. His principal magazine 
was at Freyenstadt, a small town about twenty-five 
miles to the south-east of Nuremburg, in which a 
large convoy of provisions from Austria and Bavaria 
arrived while he was completing his entrenchments. 
Gustavus sent Colonel Hanwalt to surprise the 
place by night, while he himself covered the move- 
ment with another body of troops. The enterprise 
succeeded in every part. Hanwalt burst open the 
gates with petards, carried the town by assault, bore 
oif the provisions in triumph to Nuremburg, and 
retired, leaving the place in flames, and having 
destroyed everything which he could not carry off. 
Four thousand men whom Wallestein had sent under 
Colonel Spar, to insure the safety of the convoy, met 
with no better fate : they fell in with the troops with 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 95 

which Gustavus was covering Hanwalt's expedition, 
and, though they made a gallant resistance, they 
were driven into a swamp and cut to pieces ; and 
Spar himself taken prisoner. 

The Swedes were elated at this success, when 
their spirits were damped by suffering a loss almost 
equal to that which they had inflicted, in the sur- 
prise of a great store of provisions which was on its 
way from Wurzburg to the King's camp, and which 
was intercepted and carried off by Isolan, one of the 
most brilliant of Wallestein's officers. 

It was evident, however, that it was not by petty 
efforts and inconsiderable skirmishes such as these 
that the campaign was to be decided ; and, the 
moment that Wallestein appeared before Nuremburg, 
Gustavus had sent pressing requisitions to his diffe- 
rent heutenants for reinforcements. The garrisons 
in Lower Saxony were diminished, all the detached 
parties were called in, so that at last Oxenstiern, 
Duke Bernard, and Banier had collected upwards 
of 40,000 men, with which they hastened to relieve 
their master, and about the middle of August they 
arrived at Nuremburg. Gustavus was now superior 
in numbers ; but it was evident that, unless he could 
bring Wallestein to action, the reinforcements which 
he had received would be an injury rather than 
a benefit to him. Before their arrival scarcity had 
begun to cause terrible distress both in the camp 
and city ; and, what was still more afflicting to the 



96 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

King, want began to show its usual effects in 
impairing the discipline of his troops, who were 
becoming lawless, rapacious, and cruel, while some 
even of the superior officers had not escaped the 
contagion. The system of " general orders " had 
not yet been introduced, but Gustavus summoned 
all the principal officers to his own tent, and with 
great natural eloquence adjured them to repress 
all such conduct as threatened to bring disgrace 
on their holy cause. It was a bitter thing to him 
to be forced to contrast the conduct of the imperial 
troops with his own, to their disadvantage, but no one 
complained of any excesses of Wallestein's soldiers. 
Gustavus had not sought to enrich himself ; 
pointing to his heavy military boots, " I have not," 
said he, " since I left Sweden, gained as much as 
this single pair of boots which now I wear." He 
entreated them to remember that they were Chris- 
tian soldiers, and not to practise, nor to overlook 
in others, conduct which must draw down the 
anger of God upon their cause. He supported his 
address by some severe examples of punishment, 
and the common soldier was shamed at last into a 
patient enduring of privations which he saw that 
his King bore equally with himself. 

The increased numbers which Gustavus now had 
in his camp of course made it more difficult than 
ever to support them. He resolved therefore to 
try and bring the enemy to battle. Accordingly, 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 97 

as soon as the newly arrived troops had recovered 
from the fatigues of their march, he quitted his 
lines, and presented himself in order of battle 
before the camp of Wallestein, which he attacked 
at the same time with a cannonade. But Walles- 
tein's entrenchments were not more assailable than 
his own had been, and the Duke was equally deter- 
mined to show that he could not be compelled to 
fight when it did not accord with his own plan to do 
so. Two days afterwards, on the feast of St. Bar- 
tholomew, which it was thought that the atrocities 
of the French Court had made a day of evil omen 
for the adherents of the Pope, Gustavus made a 
more regular attempt to storm the enemy's position. 
Assault after assault was made with unavailing 
bravery, supported by a heavy cannonade from no 
less than eighty guns ; but all the efforts of the 
Swedes could make no impression, and, when night 
came, the King led his troops back to Nuremburg, 
lessened by severe losses, and leaving General 
Torstensohn a prisoner. He had lost 2000 men, 
and Wallestein about 400. But the success of the 
imperial general proved in" reality injurious to his 
cause by preventing peace. Such men as Wallestein 
and Gustavus were too great not to feel mutual 
respect for each other, and, accordingly, many 
civilities had passed between them. The Duke 
of Friedland had ransomed one or two Swedish 
officers and restored them to the King, with a 



98 THE LITE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

message that nothing could give him greater 
pleasure than the being instrumental in bringing 
about a peace between him and the Emperor. 
The King on his part had released General Spar, 
and had sent with him formal proposals of peace, 
which Wallestein at once forwarded to Vienna. 
They were under consideration when the news of 
this repulse of the Swedish attack reached the 
Austrian Ministers; who were so elated by the 
success, trifling as it was, that they proposed 
conditions which it was impossible for any one with 
arms in his hands to accept. 

Gustavus had remained in Nuremburg nearly 
three months; of citizens and soldiers nearly 30,000 
had perished from the casualties of war, from sick- 
ness, and from want, when, on the 8th of September, 
he broke up his camp, and, leaving Kniphausen 
with a garrison of 5000 men to defend the city, he 
passed slowly in front of the entrenchments of the 
imperial army, and, marching westward, proceeded 
to Neustadt on the Aisch ; where he made a short 
halt to refresh his troops ; and then, having 
detached Duke Bernard to Wurzburg to cover the 
line of the Maine, he returned with his main army 
into Bavaria. 

A great military critic * blames, apparently wdth 
some reason, the long stay which had been made in 

* Colonel Mitchell ; Life of Wallestein, c. vii., a book to wliicli I 
am under great obligations for this sketch. 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 99 

the camp at Nuremburg. It certainly does not seem 
easy to be justified on either military or political 
grounds ; but, when he proceeds to argue that it was 
another error in Gustavus to have summoned Oxen- 
stiern's reinforcements to join him, the two ideas 
seem hardly consistent with each other; for, without 
Oxenstiern's troops, Gustavus had not 20,000 men ; 
and with so scanty a force how could he leave his 
camp almost under the eyes of such a general as 
Wallestein with three times his numbers ? While, 
if Oxenstiern, without uniting his forces with those 
of his master, had marched into Austria and 
Bavaria, it seems that Wallestein' s whole army 
would have been interposed between these two 
divisions of the Swedes, and would have been able 
to attack either with almost irresistible advantage. 
The only error that the King appears fairly charge- 
able with is, that of still remaining in his camp 
three weeks after Oxenstiern's arrival had enabled 
him to take the field with superior numbers. 

Having reached Bavaria, the King proceeded 
along the Danube, and laid siege to Ingoldstadt; 
but was forced by political considerations to aban- 
don the idea of prosecuting the war in that direc- 
tion. The Ministers of Spain and Austria had 
been sedulous in their endeavours to detach from 
his alliance the Elector of Saxony : who was 
jealous of seeing a foreign sovereign take such a 
lead in the affairs of Germany ; and was only kept 

H 2 



100 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

true to his engagements by the constant protection 
which Gustavus had afforded him. But Wallestein 
had quitted his camp at Furt, five days after 
Gustavus had left Nuremberg. At Bamberg he 
reviewed his troops, which, after the Duke of 
Bavaria had quitted him, to protect his own 
dominions, were reduced to little more than 20,000 
men (so terribly had the same privations which 
he inflicted on the Swedes thinned his own num- 
bers also) ; and then, summoning Pappenheim and 
Altringer to rejoin him, he marched northwards, 
taking Bayreuth and Coburg on his way towards 
Upper Saxonj^, which he designed to make the 
scene of his winter quarters. Leipsic surrendered 
at his approach ; and it was plain that, if his pro- 
gTess was not checked, he would overrun the whole 
province. It was equally plain that if he did, he 
would effectually sever the bonds which bound the 
Elector to Gustavus; who, influenced by this 
weighty consideration, yielded to the entreaties of 
the Elector, raised the siege of Ingoldstadt, and 
pursued Wallestein with the utmost rapidity. At 
Nuremburg he was joined by a strong body of 
Swiss soldiers ; and at Schleusingen, on the borders 
of the Thuringian forest, he was further reinforced 
by Duke Bernard, with the troops with which he 
had been detached to act against Paj)penheim. 
At Erfurt he had a brief interview with his Queen^ 
of whom he took a last ^ farewell, on the 29th of 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 101 

October; and proceeded into Saxony by forced 
marches, in the hope of recovering Naumburg, 
which had been lately taken by the Imperialists, 
who however had left but a small garrison there. 
He gained his object on the 1st of November, 
anticipating the reinforcements which Wallestein 
sent the moment that he heard of his approach. 
Nothing could exceed the joy with which the 
Saxons welcomed their deliverer as he passed 
through their country. They knelt before him on 
his march, crowding amid his soldiers, if haply 
they might touch the hem of his garment, or the 
sheath of his sword. It was in vain that he 
reproved them and warned them that they might 
bring the wrath of God upon him, by making him 
the object of such almost profane idolatry. The 
feeling was universal ; men and women, old and 
young ; those who had tasted of the horrors of 
war, from which he was come to deliver them ; 
those whose hopes were fixed on its glories, to 
which none could so well lead them ; all were alike 
incapable of being restrained from offering their 
affectionate homage to their darhng hero. 

Wallestein turned back from Leipsic to check 
his progress, with the view of bringing him to 
action before he could form a junction with the 
Saxons; but, on reconnoitering the Swedish posi- 
tion at Naumburg, he found, though only two days 
had elapsed since the arrival of Gustavus, that in 



102 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

that short time the King had fortified it with works 
ahuost as strong as, though smaller in extent than, 
those at Nuremburg. For once the Duke of Fried- 
land consulted his subordinate generals ; and they 
gave him fatal advice. It was their unanimous 
opinion that the King had entrenched himself as 
they saw, with the intention of passing the winter 
in his camp ; that therefore Pappenheim might 
safel}^ be detached to Cologne, which was threat- 
ened by the Dutch ; and that the rest of the arm}^ 
might retire into winter quarters. 

Wallestein had with him nearly 40,000 men 
when he dispersed his troops in cantonments, in 
accordance with this plan; but Pappenheim, besides 
the force destined for the Rhine, was furnished with 
twelve regiments to reduce a Swedish garrison in 
Halle ; and Wallestein with about 12,000 men 
marched to Lutzen to cover his expedition. 

On the 5th of November, Gustavus with his 
whole army, consisting of about 20,000 men, quitted 
Naumburg with the view of joining the Saxons 
at Dresden. He had scarcely quitted the camp 
when he intercepted a letter from Count Colloredo, 
from which he learnt the absence of Pappenheim, 
and the small number of the army which was with 
Wallestein. In a moment he changed his course, 
and turned towards Lutzen to surprise and crush 
his enemy before he could assemble his forces. 

Some outlying cavaby, driven in by the approach 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 103 

of the Swedes, brought the Duke the first tidings 
of his danger. Surprised but not dismayed, he 
took instant measures for his defence. Signal guns 
were fired to bring up the detachments from the 
cantonments into which they had been dispersed. 
An express was sent to Pappenheim, who was as 
yet hardly more than five miles off, commanding 
him to return to the assistance of his chief, with 
every man and every gun. The roads by which 
the Swedes were advancing were bad, and they had 
to cross a small river which Isolan defended with a 
handful of cuirassiers, so that it was evening before 
Gustavus arrived in front of the enemy. Walle- 
stein had obtained a precious respite, and he did not 
throw away a moment of the time thus gained. 
The plain of Lutzen was a perfect level, and the 
small town itself covered his right, and the left of 
the Swedish army. A road ran between the two 
armies, and this road was separated from the fields 
by deep ditches on either side. Wallestein employed 
the day in deepening the ditches, and with the soil 
thrown up he formed as it were parapets on the 
banks, to serve as a shelter for his musqueteers, who 
could fire over them upon the advancing enemy. 
He arranged his men in large square battalions of 
heavy infantry ; with smaller bodies of light troops 
between them. Fresh detachments kept pouring 
in all night, and before dawn, Pappenheim returned 
with his cavalry. As they arrived they were at 



104 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

once stationed in the places marked out for them, 
till at last the whole army amounted prohably to 
25,000 men. The Duke had not much artillery, 
hut there was a small battery in front of his centre; 
and a larger one of seventeen guns in front of some 
windmills on the right of the subordinate generals. 
Hoik commanded the right ; Offa the centre ; and 
Goltz the left. 

The Swedes were arranged as at Leipsic. The 
King himself commanding the right wing ; Duke 
Bernard the left ; and Kniphausen the second line. 
In his eaitire numbers Gustavus was probably 
inferior to Wallestein ; but his cavalry and artillery 
were the more numerous. 

The day of battle was the 6th of November. It 
was long, very long, since a day had dawned in 
Europe of which the issue was to be so momentous. 
Since Csesar had won the Empire of the world on 
the field of Pharsalia, no two such generals had 
ever confronted one another as those who were now 
arming for the contest. Both were heroes of the 
truest mould : magnanimous, brave, skilful, hitherto 
invincible. It was now to be seen whose star was to 
set ; which was to be for the future the foremost man 
of the world. Gustavus headed his men in a plain 
buff coat, mounted on a white charger of conspicuous 
beauty. Wallestein, who was suffering severely from 
gout, was carried through the ranks in a sedan chair; 
and did not mount his horse till the battle began, 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 105 

when the pain of the body yielded to the energy 
of the soul, and none who beheld his exertions 
could have guessed how severe were his sufferings. 

At daybreak the two armies were hidden from 
one another by an impenetrable fog; and it was 
almost noon when the sun began to dissipate the 
mist. As soon as he could clearly see the ranks of 
the enemy, Gustavus exclaimed with a loud voice, 
" Aid us, Lord Jesus ; for thy holy name are we 
about to fight ! " and in person led the vanguard 
against the enemy. The Imperialists set fire to 
Lutzen to prevent their right flank from being 
turned ; however, the Swedes were not thinking of 
manoeuvring, but pressed straight forward to the 
charge. The tale of hard -fought battles has been 
often told ; and presents but little variety. The fiery 
charge of the Swedes broke Wallestein's phalanxes. 
He flew to the spot, and his personal exertions re- 
stored the day in the part where his battalions first 
wavered. The Imperialists' left had been broken 
by the King at the head of his cuirassiers ; when 
Gustavus heard that on the other wing Duke 
Bernard was less successful. While Wallestein 
was encouraging his beaten troops in the centre, 
the King was hastening to perform a similar office 
for his imperilled left wing. He rallied it ; it re- 
turned to the charge and beat back the Imperialists. 
Gustavus uncovered his head to breathe a silent 
prayer of thanksgiving to the Power in whose hand 



106 THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

is the victory, when one of the enemy's troopers, 
who had remarked how his ranks made way for him, 
conjectured that he must be a man of consequence, 
and fired at him with fatal aim, wounding him 
in the arm ; a second shot pierced his back. He 
fell from his horse ; his attendants fled before a 
fresh charge of the Imperialists, who, without re- 
cognising their victim, dispatched him with several 
wounds. His horse galloping along the line with 
empty saddle gave intimation to his own army of 
their loss. Bernard took the command^ and led 
on the troops for their last charge. They had been 
terrible before; now that they were fighting to 
rescue their monarch's body, and to avenge his fall, 
they were irresistible. In vain did Pappenheim col- 
lect the freshest of his men and penetrate into the 
middle of the Swedes, where he " foremost fighting 
fell," a glorious death, but not too glorious for such 
a fearless spirit. In vain did Wallestein with equal 
heroism throw himself wherever the fire was hottest 
or the onset fiercest. He seemed to bear a charmed 
life ; a cannon-shot tore his spur from his heel, ball 
after ball lodged in his thickly embroidered coat, 
he remained unwounded. Piccolomini and other 
officers, stimulated by the example of these leaders, 
displayed similar courage. Twice they drove back 
the Swedes ; but, when Bernard brought up the 
reserves and charged for the third time, the 
strength and courage of the Imperialists gave way 



THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPPIUS. 107 

together, and the rout was complete. Wallestein 
withdrew to Leipsic, leaving the field of battle, his 
baggage, and his artillery to the conquerors. When 
the next morning he tried to collect his forces with 
the hope of recovering his artillery, he could barely 
count two thousand men around his standards ; 
while the Swedish army, though with smaller loss, 
was almost equally disorganised. 

The last words of the dying monarch had been, 
" My poor queen ! Alas, my poor queen ! " To that 
beloved and faithful wife, who had more than once 
with manly daring traversed countries full of ene- 
mies to bring him the aid of reinforcements, and the 
comfort of her own presence, was his body borne, 
pierced with nine wounds. She had advanced to 
Weissenfels, where it was carefully embalmed ; and 
from thence she bore it to Stockholm, where all 
that was mortal of her hero lies in the mausoleum 
of the Swedish kings, in the Kiddarholm church. 
His daughter and successor did but little honour, 
and paid but little respect to his memory ; but in 
the present generation the worthiest of his suc- 
cessors, though a prince of foreign birth, has raised 
in a shady walk, close to the cathedral at Upsal, an 
obelisk dedicated to his memory, with the following 
inscription : — 

TO GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 

IN THE NAME OP THE SWEDISH PEOPLE, 

CHARLES JOHN XIV. 



108 EPAMINONDAS AND 



PAEALLEL. 

In the character and circumstances of the two 
heroes of whose lives I have thus endeavoured to 
give a sketch, there are many points of striking 
resemblance. Both were by nature and inclination 
lovers of peace; yet both were forced by the chain 
of events into continual w^ar, and evinced military 
talent of the highest order. As soldiers, the career 
of each was an almost uninterrupted course of 
victory; and in each case it was mainly owing 
to the reforms which they themselves had intro- 
duced into military practice. Each in his day 
was the inventor of a new system, and so wide was 
their glance, so sound were their principles on 
which those systems were founded, that they pre- 
vail to a great extent even to the present day. 
The tactics of modern armies are practicable, only 
because Gustavus taught succeeding generals to 
break up the massive, immoveable phalanx of 
former wars, into smaller and consequently more 
active and more manageable battalions. And, 
though it is now more than 2000 years since Epa- 
minondas first directed the whole weight of his 
column upon one part of the Lacedaemonian line at 



GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 109 

Leuctra, it is still in high favour as a most effective 
mode of attack ; and we need not go further back 
than the last war to find examples of the terrible 
impetuosity of the French, rendering it against 
many of their enemies an almost assured means 
of victory. 

They were both military reformers in still more 
important matters. In the most merciful hands 
there are horrors enough in war ; but in ancient 
Greece it was merciless. In those days the capture 
of a town commonly led to the slaughter of the 
men, the slavery of the women and children. These 
barbarities Epaminondas applied himself to miti- 
gate, and was almost the first of his countrymen 
to release or ransom those whom the fortune of war 
had placed at his disposal. In what a savage spirit 
hostilities were waged in the age subsequent to the 
Keformation, when religious hatred — the most cruel 
of all feelings — had added its stimulus to the natural 
ferocity of excited victory, it is needless to tell ; not 
only do Eome, and the Netherlands, and Magde- 
burg, bear terrible testimony to the unsparing 
vengeance wreaked by even brave generals upon 
conquered enemies ; but, even when unprovoked 
by resistance, the soldier appeared to conceive that 
his occupation exempted him from the ordinary 
restraints of law and of humanity. The country in 
which he was encamped as a friend, he treated like 
an enemy; and the miserable inhabitants could call 



110 EPAMINONDAS AND 

nothing their own, but the scanty leavings of his 
rapine and licentiousness. 

It was by Gustavus that this lawless spirit was 
first checked. Wallestein, to his great honour; was 
prompt to imitate him ; but it was Gustavus who 
set the example of maintaining strict discipline in 
his army, and who taught rigorous lessons of mode- 
ration and humanity to those mercenary bands who 
had flattered themselves that the need which their 
commander had of their services, must make him 
approve, or at least connive at these excesses, the 
licence for which was their greatest temptation to 
service. 

Again, both these leaders had the art of inspiring 
their troops with that personal attachment to them- 
selves which is the surest parent of great exploits ; 
and finally, they both died in the hour of victory 
which would have been decisive of the whole war, 
had they survived to reap its fruits, and which was, 
comparatively speaking, barren in its results and 
crippled in consequence of their fall. 

Nor were the talents of either of them confined 
to war. Both were eloquent speakers. In two 
congresses the Theban by himself upheld the inte- 
rests of his country successfully against the united 
eloquence and influence of the Spartan king, and 
the Athenian orator ; while the frank pleading of 
the Swede was found equally efficacious to persuade 
his Senate to adopt his views, to appease the 



GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. Ill 

hostility of Christian, and, harder task than either, 
to curb the licentious passions and avarice of mer- 
cenary soldiers. 

Both were statesmen of more than usual farsight- 
edness. The consolidation of the power of Arcadia, 
the restoration of Messene were triumphs of peace, 
and surer means than any victories to tame the 
pride and bridle the power of Sparta ; while the 
alliance cemented with France and proposed with 
England, and the attention which he bestowed on 
his navy, show an equally just appreciation by 
Gustavus of the most effectual barriers to be 
opposed to the overgrown ambition of the House 
of Austria. 

Lastty, the mainspring of action in them both 
were the purest views of patriotism, in the ancient 
hero ; of patriotism and religion combined, in the 
modern. A very eminent scholar of the present 
day has curiously enough found fault with Epami- 
nondas, because he " devoted his great qualities to 
the one petty object of the aggrandisement of 
Thebes." * It may not be an insufficient reply that 
He was a Theban. In all ages a pure disinterested 
love of one's country has been reckoned one of the 
greatest virtues ; and, before Christ had inspired 
his disciples with wider views, and taught them 
with an enlarged humanity to regard the welfare of 

* The Rev. E. Elder, Head Master of tlie Charterlioiise School, in 
the ai'ticle " Epaminondas " in Smith's Biographical Dictionary. 



112 EPAMINONDAS AND 

all mankind, it is difficult to see what other virtue 
could be displayed by any statesman of any country 
who sought to acquire an honourable fame ; while 
few men of any age or nation have ever exhibited 
such an absence of all selfish views, such a post- 
ponement of all personal claims as Epaminondas, 
when, after his renown as the victor of Leuctra 
had filled the then known world, he cheerfully 
submitted to an unmerited supersession, and served 
as a common soldier in the ranks which he alone 
had led, and alone could lead, to victory. 

Nor was less devotion to his country show^n on 
all occasions by Gustavus. True it is that, as he 
was its King, the increase of its power was more 
inseparably connected with his own aggrandisement 
than was the case with respect to Epaminondas ; 
but, as the ill-success of his earlier campaigns did 
not depress him, so neither did the triumphs of his 
later efforts excite him to pride, or to any self-com- 
placent arrogance of demeanour on the one hand, 
or to any attempts to trench on the liberties of his 
subjects on the other. Self-indulgence was the 
very last thing for which he was anxious. We 
have seen that in his very last campaign, he bade 
his plundering troops learn from his example, 
since he had gained not the very smallest accession 
of w^ealth or personal splendour from any of his 
victories. 

Schiller indeed, who delights to seek for flaws in 



GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 113 

the purest characters, charges him with a personal 
ambition which, had he survived Lutzen, would, he 
thinks, have developed itself so as to prove fatal 
to the liberties of Germany. But if he was, as 
he argues, " educated in the maxims of arbitrary 
power," the frankness with which he at all times 
consulted his Senate, and requested its sanction and 
assistance, shows that his own inclinations and 
judgment led him to a better and safer system of 
policy. His alliance with France was, and was 
felt by the Roman Catholic Princes generally to be, a 
sufficient guarantee that, though sincerely attached 
to his own religion, he did not seek to oppress 
theirs : while the depth of his attachment to the 
principles of the Reformation, on which no one has 
ventured to throw a doubt, ought to be looked upon 
as an utter disproof of the assertion that "his 
aim was the imperial crown," with which such 
principles were incompatible. It is neither a 
candid nor a just spirit which, when the actions of 
great men may be accounted for on the purest 
principles, seeks to draw them down to the level of 
common humanity, by suggesting the possibihty of 
less worthy motives. Mankind may learn as much 
wisdom and better feelings from putting the best 
interpretation on their conduct, humbly reveren- 
cing and boldly endeavouring to imitate their 
glorious examples. 

In conclusion, the remark with which an early 



114 EPAMINONDAS AND GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. 

historian summed up his account of Epaminondas 
may be equally applied to Gustavus. It is equally 
true of both, that till they arose in their respective 
countries, neither Thebes nor Sweden had been 
either illustrious or powerful. During the brief period 
of their sway, those states were the most important 
powers of Europe ; after their deaths they again 
sank to their previous insignificance. No words 
can supply so noble a panegyric as these facts. 

In closing this comparison, it seems unnecessary 
to assign a superiority to either. A merciful 
God has so amply endowed mankind with all the 
faculties calculated to make their race happy and 
their nations great, that among the mighty dead 
enshrined for ever in the admiring gratitude of all 
posterity, some one or two may perhaps be found 
whose profound wisdom, or whose marvellous 
achievements have surpassed those of the Theban 
Chief, or of the Swedish King ; but from the 
earliest records of history to the present time, none 
have gone down to the grave whose virtues have 
been marred b}^ fewer imperfections of character, 
or whose glories have been sullied by fewer errors 
of conduct. 



PHILIP, KING OF MACEDON, 

FREDERIC THE GREAT/ KING OF 
PRUSSIA. 



I 2 



THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

KINa OF MACEDO^. 



Macedonia, though occasionally mentioned in 
earlier times, did not become considerable, or in- 
timately connected with Grecian politics till towards 
the close of the Peloponnesian war; when Arche- 
laus, an usurper, though of royal blood, seized the 
throne, and by the wisdom and energy of his 
government, by his internal reforms, and by the 
establishment of a military force, laid the founda- 
tion of the future greatness of his kingdom. His 
career of usefulness was cut short by assassination, 
about the beginning of the fourth century B.C. ; and 
so pernicious had been the example which he had 
set of obtaining the throne by violent means, that 
three more kings appear in the records of the 
nation in the next six years, of whom two were 
murdered : the last, Pausanias, fell by the hands 
of Amyntas, who was also descended from the royal 
family, being the great grandson of Alexander, the 



118 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

King of Macedon, in the time of Xerxes, and who 
thus raised himself to the supreme power in the 
year 394 B.C. 

Though previously to the time of Archelaus, the 
Macedonians were but a half-civilised nation, speak- 
ing a barbarous dialect, in which there was but a 
small mixture of Greek, and were not considered 
to belong to the Greek family, — the kings of the 
nation were of the purest Hellenic blood, and 
traced their descent from Hercules. Amyntas, 
after a troubled reign of twenty-four years, died in 
370, leaving three sons-— Alexander, who succeeded 
him, Perdiccas, and Philip. Alexander was mur- 
dered in the second year of his reign, and in the 
troubles which ensued, Philip, then about fourteen 
or fifteen years of age, was placed at Thebes either 
as a hostage or for security. Here his education 
was completed in a manner for which his native 
country would have afforded no opportunities. We 
have no particular account of his studies or of 
his instructors, but it must have been here that 
he acquired that familiarity with the purest Greek 
literature which, in later days, enabled him to 
write and to speak in such a manner as to extort 
the praise of the most accomplished Athenians. 
Here he made some acquaintance with Plato, who 
conceived so favourable an opinion of his abilities 
and character, that his brother Perdiccas, when he 
recovered the throne, bestowed a principality on 



KING OF MACEDON. 119 

him at the recommendation of the philosopher ; 
and here he made the still more valuable acquain- 
tance of Pelopidas and Epaminondas, and drew 
from their conversation and example lessons of the 
highest political and military wisdom. 

After a long and severe struggle, Perdiccas re- 
covered the throne of his father and his brother, 
about six years after his father's death ; but in the 
fifth year of his reign he died either by assassina- 
tion, or of a wound received in a defeat he sustained 
from the Illyrians, leaving an infant son named 
Amyntas. His death was the signal for great civil 
dissensions. The principles which had regulated 
the succession to the Macedonian throne were so 
loosely established, that the tender age of the 
lawful successor gave encouragement to numerous 
pretenders. Philip at once seized the reins of 
sovereignty, as regent and guardian of his nephew ; 
but the throne was claimed at the same time by 
Argseus, who had previously seized and held it for 
a short space before the accession of Amyntas ; 
and also by Pausanias, one of the royal family, who 
had sought it before on the death of Alexander. 
Moreover, besides these two pretenders, Amyntas 
had left three illegitimate sons, Archelaus, Aridseus, 
and Menelaus, who might possibly prove dangerous 
competitors. Of these his half-brothers Philip put 
the first to death, the others escaped, and subse- 
quently found a temporary safety at Olynthusj 



120 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Pausanias was too weak to prosecute his claims by 
force ; but Argseus had enlisted the suj)port of the 
Athenians, with whose assistance he raised an army 
and laid siege to Mg^e, the ancient capital of the 
kingdom, whither he was promptly pursued and 
utterly defeated by Philip. 

But, though intestine discord was thus termi- 
nated, the dangers which threatened the nation 
from foreign enemies were too great to be success- 
fully confronted by the precarious authority of an 
infant sovereign ; and Philip, who had already won 
the confidence of the Senate by the ability which 
he had displayed, and the hearts of the army by 
his military frankness, and by the eloquence of the 
harangues which he had taken frequent opportunity 
to address to them, was compelled, not perhaps 
unwillingly, to assume the crown as the actual sove- 
reign of the nation. 

He was at this time about twenty-three years of 
age. His mother was Eurydice, an lUyrian Prin- 
cess ; a turbulent and licentious woman, whose 
memory is stained with the suspicion of having 
been accessory to the murders of her husband and 
of her eldest son ; but Philip's connection with her 
countrymen did not secure him from their hostility. 
Their war with Perdiccas has already been men- 
tioned, and they were now said to be preparing for 
a fresh invasion of Macedonia, which would be 
facilitated by the possession which they still re- 



KING OF MACEDON. 1.21 

tained of some of the towns within the Macedonian 
frontier. On the north Philip was threatened by 
the Pseonians ; while the Athenians had given 
proof of their unfriendly disposition by the coun 
tenance they had shown, and the succours they 
had sent to Argseus. Few princes have ever 
ascended a throne surrounded by greater diffi- 
culties, but few have been endowed with greater 
natural advantages to confront and master them. 
Calculated alike to win the attachment of a rude 
people, and to secure the respect and admiration 
of more accomplished minds, he was gifted not 
only with abundant strength of body and of 
constitution, undaunted courage, and a natural 
dignity of demeanour, but with a ready eloquence, 
great fertility of resource, constant presence of 
mind, and an accurate judgment of character, which 
enabled him often to convert enemies into friends. 
He had likewise diplomatic talents of the highest 
order, and an apparently frank affability, under which 
he often concealed the deepest designs. And these 
qualities were necessary not only for his success 
abroad, but for the maintenance of his power at 
home. For the possession of the throne had 
invested him with no absolute authority, and the 
kings were little more than the first nobles of Mace- 
donia, unless the weight of their own personal 
character chanced to add lustre and strength to 
their titular sovereignty. 



122 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Surrounded as he was with enemies he did not 
for a moment hesitate in his conduct. The Athe- 
nians had shown their hostihty to him, but his own 
inclinations led him to regard them with favour, and 
to desire their friendship : with this view, he 
released the Athenian prisoners who fell into his 
hands on the defeat of Argeeus, and sent them back 
enriched with presents, and accompanied by an 
envoy bearing a letter of amicable expostulation to 
the people at large. His kindness to the restored 
prisoners, and the hopes which his letter inspired, 
produced the desired effect on the Athenian people, 
who gladly concluded a peace with him. He next 
turned his arms against the Paeonians, who had 
lately been weakened by the loss of their warlike 
king Agis ; invaded their territory, and reduced 
them to submission ; and then proceeded to attack 
his last and most formidable enemies, the Illyrians. 
Their king, Bardylis, though upwards of ninety 
years old, was not yet sufficiently subdued by age 
to yield without a struggle to the terms which his 
youthful foe sought to impose upon him. They 
met in battle with equal forces, but the tactics of 
Epaminondas, now put in practice by Philip, 
decided the day ; and the Illyrians, who were routed 
with the loss of two thirds of their army, were glad 
to purchase peace by the surrender of all their con- 
quests in Macedonia, and the acceptance of whatever 
other terms the conqueror thought fit to impose. 



KING OF MACEDON. 123 

Having thus subdued foreign enemies, Philip 
applied himself to consolidate and secure his power 
at home. The solid ai:ray of the phalanx, which 
he copied from the Thebans, had been the chief 
instrument of his victory over the Illyrians ; he 
now improved its organisation and established it 
as a standing army; the numbers of which he 
gradually increased till, before the end of his reign, 
the force which he kept constantly on foot amounted 
to no less than 20,000 men. The mihtary discipline 
which he established was of the very strictest kind ; 
and it was maintained with an inflexible severity 
which allowed no relaxation to officers of even the 
highest rank. At the same time to bind the great 
nobles more surely to the throne, he began to 
accustom them to send their sons to be educated 
at his court ; where, like the pages and esquires in 
the feudal ages, they learnt the duties of obedience 
as well as a degree of refinement, which in their 
separate homes would have scarcely been attainable, 
and from which they passed into the Royal Guard, 
a body whose organisation and regulations were the 
objects of his peculiar care ; and to whom he gave 
the honourable title of comrades,* encouraging 
them with the prospect of rising to the highest 
posts of honour in the kingdom, which were re- 
served almost entirely for this favoured troop. 

* Ue^eTaipoi, lit. foot cornpanions. 



124 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

A few years later, after the death of Onomarchus, 
he added the admirable Thessalian Cavahy to his 
army ; and a body of light troops, bowmen and 
slingers, such as would not have been considered 
worth reckoning in the numbers of an army in the 
preceding age, but whose value and efficacy in 
deciding the fate of a battle, Iphicrates had gradu- 
ally taught the Greeks to recognise. He also 
raised a naval force, not at first, nor indeed at any 
time during his reign, able to cope with that of the 
Athenians, who were still masters of the sea, but 
sufficient to afford great protection to his coasts 
and to his rising trade, and at times to retaliate and 
even more than retaliate on his jealous neighbours. 
Feeling himself now securely established at home, 
he began to take measures to extend his power 
abroad. Amphipolis, at the mouth of the river Stry- 
mon in Thrace, had originally been a colony of the 
Athenians, founded a short time before the breaking 
out of the Peloponnesian war. It had been lost to 
them, however, and, at the accession of Philip, was 
in the hands of the Macedonians. He, in order to 
conciliate the good will of Athens, and to pave the 
■way for the peace with that city, which has been 
already mentioned, withdrew the garrison which 
held it in subjection, even if he did not in his 
letter to the Athenian people formally repudiate 
all claim to any power or rights over the town. 
The Athenians, however, had taken no steps to 



KING OF MACEDON. 125 

reassert their dominion over it ; and for a twelve- 
month and upwards, it had been left in a state of 
perfect freedom and independence, This freedom, 
however, it was a place of too much importance to 
be permitted to retain, being valuable to both 
Macedonians and Athenians, on account of the 
gold mines in the district, and of its proximity to 
the great forests of the Strymon, which afforded 
such inexhaustible supplies of timber for ship- 
building; and to the former still more especially, 
as, on the one hand, affording them a means of 
resisting or counteracting the maritime supremacy 
of the Athenians ; and, on the other hand, as 
opening to them a passage into Thrace. What 
offence the citizens had given to Philip in the short 
interval that had elapsed since he had renounced 
all control over them, or on what pretences he 
picked a quarrel with them, we know not ; but 
about the end of the year 358, he declared war 
against the city, summoned it to surrender, and on 
its refusal, commenced a vigorous siege of it. Both 
parties communicated the beginning of the war to 
the Athenians. The Amphipolitans implored aid ; 
Philip gave them a courteous notice that he was 
besieging the town, which, as it of right belonged 
to them, he intended to deliver over to them as soon 
as he had taken it. The Athenians had often been 
dissatisfied with the Amphipolitans, sometimes as 
refractory and ungrateful colonists, sometimes as the 



^ 



126 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

involuntary cause of disaster to them. They were 
also at the present moment especially inclined to 
look with favour upon Philip ; so they declined to in- 
terfere, and dismissed the envoys from the besieged 
city with a refusal of all succour. It soon fell — not 
without treachery on the part of some of the inha- 
bitants ; from thence he proceeded against Pydna, 
a Macedonia seaport, which in the reign of Arche- 
laus had revolted to Athens. It is said that one 
of the principal reasons which had determined the 
Athenians to reject the prayer of the Amphipolitans 
for aid, was that they had come, or believed that 
they had come, to an understanding with Philip, 
that when he had taken Amphipolis he should 
deliver it to them, receiving back Pydna in ex- 
change ; but, the moment he appeared before 
Pydna, that town opened its gates to him, and then, 
having won the town by his own efforts, without 
any assistance from the Athenians, he looked upon 
himself as under no obligation to restore them 
Amphipolis in exchange for it. 

The power of Olynthus, and the confederacy of 
which it was the head, had been steadily increasing 
for the last five-and-twenty years, and its chiefs 
began to feel and to show suspicions of the objects 
of Philip. Before the fall of Amphipolis they had 
sent envoys to the Athenians to urge them to unite 
with themselves for the defence of that important 
town ; but, though their proposal had been rejected. 



KING OF MACEDON. 127 

and though Philip had propitiated them for a time 
by giving up to them Anthemus, a town in the 
neighbourhood, on which they had some claim, in 
spite of its having belonged to the Macedonians for 
many years, he was still apprehensive that they 
might renew their overtures to Athens with more 
success, and form an alliance which would be the 
greatest possible obstacle to his designs. He 
sought, therefore, to obtain a firmer hold upon 
their affections, by conferring a greater benefit on 
them. Potidsea was the most important city in the 
district, and had been originally dependent on Olyn- 
thus ; but, a few years before, it had been taken 
by Timotheus, the son of Conon, and since that 
event it had been held by an Atheitian garrison. 
Philip now offered the Olynthians his assistance in 
recovering it, which was an object wdiich he knew 
they had greatly at heart ; and his and their united 
forces reduced it without difficulty. The Athenian 
settlers were dispossessed and expelled ; but, being 
still unwilling to break with Athens, he treated the 
garrison with great kindness, and sent it back in 
safety, in hopes more effectually to prevent any 
union between Athens and Olynthus, and to force a 
comparison between the injuries inflicted by the 
latter, and the benefits conferred by himself, which 
would be all to his advantage, and would bear its 
fruit when the time should come for the further 
prosecution of his views. 



128 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

The fall of Potidsea was attended b}^ other omens 
of future success. In the preceding jeav he had 
married Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus, 
King of Epirus, in whose company he had previ- 
ously been initiated into the religious mysteries of 
Samothrace ; and now, while flushed with his 
success at Potidsea, he received three messengers 
of joyful tidings in one day : the first, announcing 
to him that he had won the prize in the chariot- 
race at Olympia ; the second, that his general, 
Parmenio, had defeated the Ill^Tians ; the third, 
that he had a son born, though even he himself, in 
his most ambitious moments, could not foresee the 
glory which, as long as mankind is capable of appre- 
ciating the most extensive genius, set off to the 
greatest advantage by the highest practical abihty 
and energy in action, will surround the name of 
Alexander the Great. 

He now proceeded to make himself master of 
the gold mines in the neighbourhood of Amphipolis, 
the wealth to be derived from which had been 
originally the chief inducement to the Athenians to 
found that colony. The Thasians had lately become 
the principal possessors and workers of them ; nor 
'did he now disturb their occupation of the land, 
though he brought a body of Macedonian settlers 
to share it with them, and enlarged the Thasian 
village into a city, which he called Philippi, destined 
to become celebrated hereafter as the witness of the 



KING OF IVIACEDON. 129 

last battle fought in defence of Eoman liberty. The 
mines he seized and appropriated to the state of 
Macedonia, and introduced such improvements into 
the manner of working them, that they soon pro- 
duced him a yearly revenue of a thousand talents. 
Philippi was alone important to him, not only on 
account of the protection it afforded to the mines, 
but as a military station commanding the rich valley 
of the Mestus, and opening a way to the northern 
provinces between Macedon and the Hellespont ; 
for that was the quarter to which his views of con- 
quest pointed. In his transactions with the common- 
wealths of Greece, his aim was not dominion but 
political ascendancy ; and he desired to be the 
leader of the Greeks rather than their master. 
Whether he as yet cherished in his secret thoughts 
the views of the entire subjugation of Persia, which 
he was preparing to carry out at his death, we 
cannot determine; but doubtless he already con- 
templated the deliverance of the cities of Greek 
origin on the eastern coasts of the ^gean from a 
barbarian yoke ; and this intention among others 
led him to devote much of his care to the foundation 
of a navy, which was of course indispensable for 
projects of transmarine conquest, even on a small 
scale. But the time for avowing such ideas had not 
yet arrived ; and for the next year or two he 
employed himself in that secret preparation for the 
further development of his plans, which consisted 



130 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

in promoting the internal improvement of his 
kingdom, both in the civil and military affairs ; and 
in giving heedful attention to the affairs of Greece, 
in which he saw that he should soon be able to find 
opportunity and excuse to interfere. 

While he was occupied in the establishment of 
his power in the mine district, Athens was forced to 
make war upon her own allies. The battles of 
Leuctra and Mantinea, though she had shared in 
the defeat sustained by the allies at the latter place, 
had nevertheless rather improved her position with 
respect to the rest of Greece, as the loss of her 
great chief disabled Thebes from prosecuting the 
advantages which she had gained, and Sparta had 
been far more depressed than herself by his 
triumphs. But this comparatively prosperous con - 
dition was but of brief duration, and the licentious- 
ness of her commanders, unable to restrain the 
troops for whom they could not provide their 
regular pay, began to alienate her confederates from 
her. They complained in vain. Her poverty, or 
rather the systematic diversion of the funds, which 
should have been devoted to her armies to less 
worthy objects, compelled her to connive at practices 
which were little short of piracy ; and at last, Chios, 
Cos, Rhodes, and Byzantium broke out into open 
revolt, carrying on open war against her, which lasted 
two years, and which was concluded by a peace which 
left her very much shorn of her former power. 



KING OF MACEDON. 131 

Philip no doubt saw these divisions with no small 
satisfaction ; but the next war which arose between 
the Grecian states, generally called the Sacred War, 
was more important to him, as, by the course which it 
took, it at last furnished him with an unimpeachable 
pretence for coming forward with authority, and for 
bringing the arms of Macedonto decide the contest. 

The Thebans had impeached the Phocians before 
the Amphictyonic council for some violation of the 
sacred territory belonging to the temple at Delphi ; 
and had procured their condemnation to the 
enormous fine of 1000 talents. The Phocians, 
unable to satisfy the demand, applied to the 
Athenians for military aid against the Thebans, 
who, with the Thessalians, were preparing to march 
into their country and levy the fine by force. Aided 
by Athens they assumed the offensive, and occupied 
Delphi ; becoming, by that act, masters of all the 
treasures contained in the temple of Apollo. After 
several battles fought with varying fortune, Philo- 
melus the Phocian leader was killed, but was 
succeeded in his authority by his brother Ono- 
marchus, who seized upon the treasures of the 
temple, which Philomelus had forborne to touch, 
and by these means collected a large force, with 
which he overran Locris and Doris, and made 
himself master of Orchomenos. Philip, who was 
biding his time, saw that the moment was at hand 
when he should be able to interfere with effect; 

K 2 



132 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

and, that no obstacle to his entering Thessaly might 
remain, laid siege to Methone, on the Thessalian 
frontier. The resistance made by the citizens, who 
were conscious of having offended him by affording 
shelter to his enemies, was long and desperate ; for 
nearly a year did they hold out, in spite of the 
utmost efforts of the besiegers, among whom the 
King in person exerted and exposed himself so 
much, that he lost an eye by an arrow, — shot, 
according to some later annalists, by an archer 
whose skill he had slighted, and who took this 
opportunity to convince him of his value. At last 
the town fell ; Philip imitating the moderation of 
which Epaminondas had set the Greeks an example, 
spared the lives of the citizens, with the exception 
of the fatal archer, whose name was Aster. The 
city itself he gave up to be pillaged, by his soldiers, 
after which he razed it to the ground, and divided 
the district belonging to it among a Macedonian 
colony. This victory had scarcely opened to him 
the road to Thessaly, when even his own hopes 
were exceeded by an invitation from the Aleuadse, 
the chiefs of Larissa and the north of Thessaly, to 
aid them against Lycophron, one of the sons of 
Jason, the former tyrant of Pherse, who, since the 
murder of Alexander, Jason's successor, had estab- 
lished himself in that city with sovereign power. 
Philip gladly responded to the call. Onomarchus 
sent his brother Phayllus with 7000 men to the 



KINO OF MACEDON. 133 

assistance of Lycopliron, but he was defeated and 
driven out of Thessaly ; and the conqueror, proceed- 
ing towards the south, took Pagasse, the principal 
seaport of the nation, from which, the first vessel 
that ever bore the Greek mariner across the waters, 
the Argo, had sailed in quest of the fabled riches of 
Colchis. His successes were so threatening, that 
Onomarchus himself came to the support of the 
tyrant, and, though his forces were but little superior 
in numbers, gave the King of Macedon so severe a 
defeat that he was compelled to evacuate Thessaly 
and retire to his own kingdom ; displaying at the 
same time his indomitable resolution, by the saying 
that " he was not fleeing, but only falling back like 
a battering-ram to give a more violent shock another 
time." And he soon returned to the charge with an 
army restored in spirits and greatly increased in num- 
bers. At the head of 23,000 men, wearing crowns 
of laurel as the champions of the Divine Lover of 
Daphne, he poured again into Thessaly. Near the 
Malian gulf he routed Onomarchus with the loss of 
half his army ; Onomarchus himself was killed, and 
Philip nailed his dead body to a cross, as one who 
had fallen in sacrilegious resistance to the soldiers of 
the god. Flushed with his victory, he proceeded 
southward, intending to advance into Phocis. The 
Phocians sent a pressing request to Athens for aid, 
and, though before the fall of Onomarchus, the fear 
of incurring the imputation of sacrilege, had pre- 



134 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

vented the Athenians from openly assisting him, 
and had restrained them from making any more 
useful demonstrations in his favour than was 
afforded by sending Chares with a squadron to 
cruise in the Pagasaean G-ulf ; yet now the urgency 
of the danger impelled them to throw aside both 
their religious scruples and their usual dilatoriness ; 
and they sent a strong force to guard Thermopylae, 
which took up a position so formidable, that Philip 
was unable to attack them. He withdrew to his 
own country, first of all strengthening his friends in 
Thessaly, and increasing his own popularity by 
establishing a Eepublican Government at Pherse, 
And, as the possession of Pagasse, which he retained, 
afforded him facilities for naval enterprises against 
the Athenians, he availed himself of it for retaliating 
on them the disappointment which he had sustained 
at Thermopylse ; fitting out a small fleet, which 
invaded many of the islands which they looked 
upon as peculiarly their own, he captured many of 
their merchant vessels almost in sight of Attica, 
and even entered the bay of Marathon, and carried 
off the sacred galley Paralus in triumph. 

He now began to prepare for the further extension 
of his power in the north. He had already reduced 
Apollonia, one of the most powerful towns of the 
district around Olynthus, lying towards the Thracian 
frontier; and, as Cersobleptes, the son and suc- 
cessor of Cotys king of Thrace, had entered into a 



KING OF MACEDON. 135 

close alliance with Athens, he willingly took 
Amadocus, a rival of the Thracian monarch, under 
his protection, penetrated the country almost as far 
as the Chersonese, laid siege to a fortress called 
Hera3um on the Propontis or Sea of Marmara, and 
was preparing to prosecute further operations with 
vigour, when his prpgress was arrested by an illness 
so severe that it was reported at Athens that he was 
dead. He returned to his own dominions, having 
defeated or terrified the Thracian monarch so com- 
pletely (for we are wholly without any minute or 
accurate information with respect to this campaign), 
that that sovereign gave up his son to him as a 
hostage. 

It was at this juncture that Demosthenes, then a 
young man, just beginning to take a part in public 
business, first began to conceive apprehensions of 
his designs, and endeavoured to inspire the Athe- 
nians with his own prophetic spirit; but, though 
his first warnings were urged with an eloquence to 
which maturity and subsequent practice could add 
but little vigour, his predictions of general danger 
produced no effect on his now degenerate country- 
men. He soon had occasion to address to them 
more particular advice in emergencies that could 
neither be misunderstood nor trifled with. 

Olynthus, from having been the most powerful 
city in the north of Greece and the head of an 
important confederacy, had now, by its own impolicy 



136 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

and the intrigues of Philip, become gradually bereft 
of all its allies and at war with Athens. It had also 
afforded Philip a pretext for a quarrel by having 
sheltered two of the illegitimate sons of Amyntas 
when he put their brother to death. The city was 
chiefly under the guidance of two demagogues, 
Lasthenes and Euthycrates, wjio had been some 
time before brought over to Philip's interests ; and 
who, in the preceding year, had had influence 
enough to cause the rejection of proposals made by 
Athens for peace and a mutual defensive alliance 
against Macedon. They now persuaded the citizens 
to view with supineness his destruction of Stageira, 
the birth-place of Aristotle, and of numerous other 
cities of the Chalcidic district, till at last it could no 
longer be concealed from the most stupid or most 
cowardly, that their own destruction was the real end 
and object of all his measures, and that the only 
reward that they could expect for their supineness 
was that of being the last to be devoured. Then 
they repented of their rejection of the overtures of 
the Athenians, and of their own accord sent an 
embassy to them to court the alliance which they 
had so lately refused. Their request was supported 
by all the eloquence of Demosthenes ; but, though 
in words it was granted, the Athenians were far 
from acting with the energy that war against such 
an enemy as Philip required ; instead of the forces 
that their counsellor thought necessary, they sent a 



KING OF MACEDON. 137 

small body of mercenaries, under Charidemus, a 
mere captain of hirelings and not even a native 
citizen of Athens, who, after fighting in the pay of 
one barbarian and another, had now transferred his 
services from Cersobleptes to them. As he was 
not deficient in either courage or skill, his move- 
ments met with some success against the enemy; 
but the licentiousness of his troops and of his own 
conduct, and his insolence to the Olynthian magis- 
trates was such that they sent a second application 
for aid to Athens, entreating that it should be fur- 
nished by citizens and not by mercenaries. 

Again Demosthenes thundered in their behalf, 
and the facts which even the partisans of Philip 
could not deny were more eloquent than the orator. 
A fresh fleet, 2000 heavy infantry, and 300 cavalry, all 
Athenians, were sent under Chares, a man not indeed 
to be compared to the generals of ancient times, but 
probably the best that could then be provided ; but 
by this time Mecyberna, the port of Olynthus, had 
fallen, and the city itself was blockaded and reduced 
to solicit peace. There was no longer mercy in the 
heart, or disguise in the intentions of Philip. He 
replied that the only peace he could grant them was 
such as he had granted to the Methoneans ; the 
only conditions to which he would consent were the 
expulsion of the citizens and the destruction of the 
city. What could war, what could defeat bring 
which should be more terrible ? 



138 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

The Olynthians were brave men and made a 
vigorous defence. They fought as men should 
fight who have their homes, the safety of their 
families, the altars of their gods at stake ; they 
ventured on two pitched battles in which they were 
defeated, but they still drove back the besiegers 
from their walls with undiminished courage ; till at 
last they were betrayed by their own leaders. A 
saying is attributed to Philip, that no city was 
impregnable, the gates of which were wide enough 
to admit the entrance of a mule loaded with gold ; 
and, now, that his steel had failed, gold was the 
weapon which he employed with fatal effect ; with 
such men as Lasthenes and Euthycrates, it was 
irresistible. They betrayed the army to him, and 
admitted him into the city. The conqueror took a 
cruel revenge for a resistance the gallantry of which 
deserved a better fate. The indulgence which had 
been granted to the Methoneans of being driven 
from their homes^ which they saw razed to the 
ground before their eyes, destitute indeed, but free, 
was too great for the stubborn Olynthians; the 
city was destroyed, and the citizens were sold as 
slaves ; the traitors, among whom it is said on high 
authority that Aristotle the philosopher was one, 
standing by and pointing out the richest of the 
citizens as they were exposed one by one in the 
market-place. The conquest of the whole district 
of Chalcidice was now complete : a few years before 



lONG OF MACEDON. 139 

it was a ricli, and populous, and independent 
country ; now, its thirty-two cities were utterly 
destroyed, and the inhabitants driven out, or com- 
pelled to till as slaves the lands which they had 
owned as masters ; but the country itself had not 
lost its fertility of soil nor its advantages of situa- 
tion, and, as an incorporated province of Macedonia, 
became one of the most valuable parts of that 
empire. 

While these events were taking place in the north 
of Greece, Philip, exasperated with the Athenians 
for the support which they were giving to the 
Olynthians, resolved to find them employment 
nearer home, and by his intrigues stirred up a 
revolt against them in Euboea ; it was checked by 
the defeat which Phocion gave the Euboean general 
Callias at Tamynse, but CalHas found a safe asylum 
in Macedon, and the island still continued to be 
a source of uneasiness to the Athenians till the 
peace. 

Philip seemed now at the very height of power ; 
he had inflicted the most fearful chastisement on 
his enemies ; he seemed to have put down all idea 
of resistance to his designs, and he resolved to 
solemnise his triumph with all due magnificence. 
There was an ancient festival held at Dium in 
honour of the Muses, which Archelaus had re- 
modelled on a more extensive scale ; this Philip 
now celebrated with unprecedented pomp, with 



140 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

banquets, and games lasting for nine days ; treating 
the guests who flocked to it from all parts of 
Greece with princely munificence. He even listened 
favourably to entreaties addressed to him on behalf 
of some of the miserable captives taken at Olyn- 
thus, whose doom was not yet finally sealed ; and 
granted to Satyrus the actor, though he was a 
friend of Demosthenes, and, (though the father of 
the maidens for whom he was pleading had been 
concerned in the murder of his brother Alexander,) 
the freedom of the daughters of Apollophanes, 
even adding to the marriage-portions which Satyrus 
provided for them. 

Policy often seduced Philip into acts of inhu- 
manity ; and, when he thought it for his interest, 
no one could act with more ruthless cruelty ; but 
such were not the dictates of his natural disposition, 
or of the cultivated taste which he often displayed. 
He now availed himself of the respite afforded him 
by the termination of the Olynthian war to em- 
bellish his kingdom, and to humanise his subjects, 
by familiarising them with beautiful objects of art 
and other refinements of civilisation. At Pella 
and other cities, new palaces, and theatres, and 
temples arose, monuments of his greatness more 
durable than his victories ; while his court was the 
refuge not only of princes who, like Nectanebus, 
the conquered king of Egypt, or the satraps Arta- 
bazus and Memnon, fled from the wrath of their 



KING OF MACEDON. 14 1 

Persian master, and who probably by their exhor- 
tations and revelations of the weakness of the 
Empire, contributed to whet the purpose which he 
already cherished of carrying his arms into Asia ; 
but of artists of every kind, and philosophers, 
in short, of every man eminent for his knowledge 
of any of the arts of domestic life. Here, among 
others of less eminence, Aristotle prosecuted his 
studies, and was entrusted by the King with that 
most important of all charges, the education of the 
youthful Alexander. The foreigners thus indebted to 
him for protection and patronage, not only extended 
his reputation for moderation and humanity over 
Greece, but, what he valued still more, his influence 
in their respective states. He was too artful and 
too wise a statesman to trust, when he could help 
it, to immediate clumsy bribery for the attainment 
of his objects ; the corruption which he preferred 
was an exaggerated requital of slight benefits, great 
gratitude for small services, such kindness to those 
who had deserved little or nothing as might excite 
large hopes in the breasts of those who were 
conscious of having earned, or of having the oppor- 
tunity of earning his real regard. With these 
views his affability, his justice, and his condescen- 
sion, were carefully paraded before all men. The 
Koman Consul who, in his triumphal car endured 
to hear a slave whisper in his ear, " Kemember 
that thou art a man," perhaps learnt that lesson 



142 

from the great King of Macedonia, who every day 
before he ascended his tribunal or his throne, was 
by his own command reminded by an officer, that, 
" He also was mortal." Acting in the spirit of 
one conscious of this mortality, and of the duties 
which his rank imposed upon him, he made it a 
rule which was seldom broken in time of peace, 
to devote a part of every day to hearing the com- 
plaints of those who fancied themselves wronged, 
and to doing equal justice between his subjects ; 
and, while thus employed, his impartiality and his 
patience were equally admirable. Plutarch tells 
us that, on one occasion, he was solicited to modify 
a sentence, which was to be pronounced against a 
man of some consideration, whose character it was 
alleged would otherwise be utterly ruined : " I had 
rather," said the monarch, "that he should lose 
his character than that I should destroy mine." 
More admirable still was his conduct when a poor 
woman pressed for a decision of her cause, whiph 
had been long pending, and he assured her with a 
bland refusal that he had no time to examine it. 
" If," said the suitor, " you have no time to do 
justice, lay aside your crown, you have no time to 
be king." Struck by the reproof, he heard and 
decided her cause at once ; making thus a practical 
acknowledgment that he admitted the correctness of 
her conceptions of the obligations of kingly power, 
and was bound to act up to them. 



KING OF MACEDON. 143 

It must be confessed at the same time that, in 
his more unrestrained moments, his affability was 
too apt to degenerate into buffoonery, his mirth 
into the grossest debauchery. No doubt many of 
the stories that have been handed down by the 
calumnious malignity of Theopompus, and the 
polluted imagination of Athenseus, are destitute of 
foundation; but enough, that cannot be denied, 
remains to prove that he was more than ordinarily 
addicted to sensual pleasures, in the pursuit of 
which he was restrained by no sense of regal 
dignity or manly decency, abandoning himself to 
excesses which we must excuse or account for by 
giving heed to the warning so regularly echoed 
in his own ears, and remembering that he too was 
mortal. 

His power appearing thus fully secured, Philip 
wished for peace ; it has been said already, that he 
did not seek the conquest of Greece, but a political 
ascendancy in the several states of which the entire 
country might be said to be composed ; and this 
ascendancy, to a greater degree than he could have 
anticipated, he had now secured. The only power 
that could offer him the slightest resistance was 
Athens ; and to Athens, above almost all other 
states, he was inclined to be favourable. Moreover, 
he stood on such a vantage ground, that he could 
afford to be the first to propose peace, without 
derogating from his dignity, or seeming to com- 



144 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

promise his superiority ; while the events of the last 
few years were such, that the two nations could still 
treat on ax)parently equal terms. Athens had learnt 
that her fleet was no longer omnipotent to protect 
the islands in the ^gean, her merchantmen, and 
even her sacred galley on her own coasts, or to 
keep her nearest dependencies, such as Euboea, in 
complete subjection; and Philip had been taught 
that she could still oppose a formidable barrier to 
his progress, if he wished to carry his victorious 
arms to the south of his new Thessalian acquisi- 
tions ; that her fleet was still more powerful than 
his own ; that there was still that patriotism and 
energy alive in some of her leaders, and that she 
had still that influence over the councils of other 
Grecian states, that would make her enmity dan- 
gerous, her neutrality important, her cordial alliance 
the most desirable of all things for the furtherance 
and completion of his mightj^ projects. 

Accordingly, when the ambassadors from Eubcea 
were at Athens, treating for a renewal of the old 
terms of alliance ; they said, also, that they were 
commissioned by Philip to express his desire for a 
reconciliation: a citizen named Phrj^no, who had 
been his prisoner, and had been courteously treated, 
and had his ransom restored by him, gave a similar 
account. To improve the opening thus afforded 
for negociation, Aristodemus, the actor, was sent as 
an agent to Pella, ostensibly to treat for the release 



KING OF MACEDON. 146 

of some Athenian prisoners who had been taken at 
Olynthus, but probably with secret instructions of a 
more important character. The king restored the 
prisoners without ransom, and Aristodemus brought 
back so favourable an account of his goodwill to the 
whole city, that ten ambassadors, among whom 
were both Demosthenes and ^schines, were ap- 
pointed to go to Macedonia as commissioners, to 
ascertain the terms on which the peace and alliance 
thus mutually desired might be arranged. On their 
road they found Parmenio, Philip's most trusted 
general, besieging Halus, a small Thessalian town, 
which was bound by some slight treaty of alliance 
to Athens ; but Parmenio allowed them to pass 
through his lines ; and they arrived, without 
hindrance, at the Macedonian Court, where Philip 
was prepared to exert all the diplomacy, all the 
dissimulation, and all those powers of conciliation, 
of which he was so great a master, to win over, or 
to blind the deputation to the purposes of which, 
amid all his courtesy and professions of a cordial 
wish for peace, he was resolved not to abandon the 
smallest tittle. 

The chief difficulty arose from the affairs of 
Phocis. The peace proposed was to comprehend 
Athens and Macedonia, and their mutual allies; 
but Philip refused to allow Halus or Phocis to be 
included in it, for the Thebans had already solicited 
his aid against the Phocians, and he would not be 



146 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

precluded from affording it. Phayllus, who, after 
the death of Onomarchus, had succeeded to the 
chief command among his countrymen, had soon 
afterwards died of disease ; and his authority had 
passed to Phaleecus, a son of Onomarchus, who had 
continued the sacred war with great energy and 
success. The exjpenses which he incurred had, 
however, been so great, that he had stripped the 
temple at Delphi of all its treasures, and was pre- 
paring to tear up the sacred floor itself for wealth, 
reported by tradition — supported by a line of 
Homer — to be concealed beneath, when Apollo 
interfered by earthquakes to protect his domain 
from any further sacrilege. The Thebans were 
assisted by the treasures of the king of Persia, but 
appear to have wanted a leader of ability sufficient 
to cope with the Phocian chief, who retained pos- 
session of some of their most important towns, such 
as Orchomenos and Coronea, and of the key of the 
whole country, the Pass of Thermopylae. Weary 
of the war, their chiefs would gladly have reconciled 
themselves to the Athenians; but the animosities 
between the two cities were too strong to allow of 
such an alliance being as yet practicable ; so, in 
their despair they applied to Philip. The Thessa- 
lians united with them in urging him to crush the 
Phocians, who had given them especial offence, by 
suppressing the meetings of the Amphictyonic 
Council at Thermopylae ; and they further invested 



KING OF MACEDON. 147 

their joint representations with a sacred character, 
urging Philip, in the name of the Delphian god, 
as champion of the Amphictyonic league, to 
rescue his temple from its sacrilegious usurpers 
and plunderers. 

Philip therefore positively refused to admit the 
Phocians as parties to the proposed peace ; and the 
Athenians, who had no suspicion of the resolution 
which he had taken with regard to them, or of his 
having any inclination to favour the aggrandise- 
ment of Thebes ; and who were discontented with 
Phalsecus, who had refused their assistance to 
guard Thermopylae, and had insulted their heralds, 
while proclaiming the Eleusinian Mysteries, at last 
acquiesced in their exclusion. The commissioners 
returned to Athens to give an account of their 
proceedings ; and, soon after, Philip sent three 
ambassadors, Parmenio, his favourite general. Anti- 
pater, his most trusted statesman, and Eurylochus, 
as the formal bearers of his proposals, with further 
authority to receive the oath of the Athenians and 
their allies to observe the alliauce, if they should be 
willing to take it. The ambassadors were received 
and sumptuously entertained by Demosthenes, who 
was a warm advocate of the peace, and who was 
gradually brought, with the other leaders of the 
people, to consent to the abandonlnent of their 
Phocian allies ; and the peace was formally decreed 
in the assembly of the people, and sworn to by the 

L 2 



148 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Athenian people and by the envoys from their 
different allies. The Athenian commissioners were 
also reappointed to return to Macedonia, and receive 
the formal ratification of the treaty from Philip; 
but, when they arrived at Pella, he was no longer in 
Macedonia. 

Cersobleptes had not been expressly named as 
being either included in, or excluded fromj the 
treat}^, the Athenian generals apparently doubting 
whether their connections with him were such 
as to warrant them in claiming him for an ally, and 
Philip having long resolved to annex his dominions 
to his own. Accordingly, he had scarcely sent 
Antipater and his colleagues to Athens, when he 
himself marched into Thrace, reduced an impor- 
tant fortress, called the Sacred Mountain, and 
prosecuted his conquest as far as the Hebrus, taken 
Doriscus and other towns, though some of them 
were actually occupied by Athenian garrisons; at 
last, having wholly subdued Cersobleptes, and 
compelled him to give up his son as a hostage, 
he finally returned to Pella, nearly two months 
after the conclusion of the treaty at Athens. Even 
then he delayed for some time longer taking the 
oath expected of him, while he amused the 
ambassadors from the different States of Greece, 
(of whom, besides the Athenian commissioners, a 
complete congress was assembled from Sparta, and 
Thebes, and Thessaly, and Phocis,) with hopes of 



KING OF MACEDON. 149 

various kinds; treating the Phocian envoys with 
marked courtesy, and leading them all, except the 
Thehans, to believe that the army which he was 
rapidly collecting, was destined to be poured into 
the Boeotian territory. Even Demosthenes, the 
most inclined of all the body to entertain sus- 
picions of his designs, appears to have been the 
dupe of his artifices, and, without insisting on the 
immediate ratification of the treaty, to have been 
contented to accompany his colleagues in Philip's 
train to the south of Thessaly. At Pherse at last, 
in an ordinary inn in the town, Philip swore in 
the presence of the Athenian commissioners, to 
observe the treaty, first making a formal protest 
that the Phocians were excluded from it ; and the 
Athenians returned home bearing with them a 
letter from Philip apologising for the delay which 
had taken place, and containing unmeaning assur- 
ances of general goodwill, which (backed by the 
representations of those members of the embassy, 
whom he had won over, of his intention to grant 
the people some important favours, such as the 
restoration of Oropus, and of Amphipolis, or an 
equivalent for it, and other gratifications of which 
they had long been desirous) so completely blinded 
the whole people, that they passed a complimentary 
decree, thanking Philip for his goodwill ; and de- 
clared that, if the Phocians did not surrender the 
Delphian Temple to its rightful guardians, the 



150 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Ampliictj^ons, they would themselves assist him iu 
compelling them to do so. 

The moment the ambassadors left Pherse, Philip 
began his march towards Thermopylae. Phalsecus 
had, from some insane jealousy, refused a Spartan 
reinforcement which Archidamus had offered him ; 
and now found himself deprived of the Athenian 
support, on which he had reckoned. All resistance 
was hopeless, and he made his submission to the 
invader, on condition of being allowed to retu'e 
with his army from Phocis. He withdrew into 
Peloponnesus, and from thence passed into Crete ; 
where he died soon afterwards, having been struck 
by lightning ; or, according to another story, 
having been assassinated by one of his own 
soldiers. 

Philip marched into Phocis, now completely 
defenceless. Some of the chief towns surrendered 
at once ; those that resisted were stoned ; and they 
were all alike razed to the ground, and the inhabi- 
tants were sold into slavery. The conqueror took 
possession of Delphi, and, though it was not yet 
the season for its usual meeting, summoned the 
Amphictyonic Council to decide on the fate of the 
remainder of the Phocian nation. In that assembly 
the unhappy people had no friends, or advocates, 
or apologists. Their bitterest foes were the 
Thessalians, who proposed the execution of the 
whole male population of the age of manhood, as 



KING OF MACEDON. 151 

guilty of sacrilege, ^schines, as one of the Athe- 
nian deputies, anticipated Philip in his resistance 
to such an atrocity ; but the doom, dictated by the 
more merciful temper of the King of Mace don, 
was such as had never yet been pronounced against 
a nation. As far as a decree could effect such a 
thing, the name of Phocis was blotted out from 
among the States of Greece. All its cities, with 
the single exception of Abse, spared, it is said, out 
of regard to the ancient temple of Apollo which it 
contained, were utterly destroyed. The inhabitants 
were compelled to disperse into villages of the 
smallest size ; to pay a vast yearly fine ; to be de- 
prived of their horses and their arms ; and of their 
vote in the Council of the Amphictyons, their 
seat in which was transferred to the Kings of 
Macedonia; while, as a further recognition of the 
rights of the whole Macedonian people to the 
Grecian name, they were admitted to share the 
future presidency of the Pythian games with the 
Thebans and Thessalians. 

Philip was now most powerful, and, what was more, 
he had given most terrible proofs of his power. 
It was but two years before that the whole district 
of Chalcidice, which had been under the sway of 
Olynthus, had been depopulated, and now a still 
more terrible fate had befallen Phocis, which had 
given him even less grounds for displeasure than 
Olynthus. Such greatness was too formidable to 



152 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

be popular ; and none were more discontented than 
the states in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
conquered district. Thebes, when she invited the 
spoiler, had hoped for a share of the spoil ; and 
was but little satisfied at deriving no greater ad- 
vantage than the recovery of her own towns which 
Phalaecus had held. Athens felt that she had been 
deluded by the foreign King, perhaps betrayed by 
her own citizens. Still, when an embassy arrived 
to demand of the Athenians a formal sanction of 
the act by which Macedon had been admitted into 
the Amphictyonic League, even Demosthenes 
advised them not to provoke a war by withholding 
their acquiescence ; and they were contented to 
show their dissatisfaction by abstaining from send- 
ing the usual deputation of their principal citizens 
to the Pythian games which took place immediately 
afterwards, and which, in accordance with the late 
decree of the Amphictyons, were on this occasion 
celebrated for the first time under the presidency 
of Philip. 

One citizen of Athens, above all suspicion of 
corruption, though endowed with wisdom and 
penetration far inferior to his honesty, appears to 
have beheld the occurrences which we have just 
related with satisfaction, as affording an opening for 
the realisation of a project which for years had been 
his leading idea. Between thirty and forty years , 
before, Isocrates had published an oration, urging ' 



KING OF MACEDON. 153 

Athens and Sparta to unite, for the purpose of 
leading an army, to be contributed by all the 
Greek States, into Asia, in order to pull down the 
Persian power, which at the peace of Antalcidas had 
presumed to dictate to those who were worthy and 
able to be its masters : and now, in his extreme 
old age, clinging to the same notion, he addressed 
an oration or letter to Philip, exhorting him to 
undertake the enterprise, dwelling not only on his 
own wealth, and power, and genius, and on the 
weakness of the Persian Empire, as proved by 
the safe return of the ten thousand, but insisting 
with the zeal of an antiquary rather than of a 
statesman, that Argives, and Thebans, and Lace- 
daemonians, and Athenians, would gladly yield the 
the supreme command to him on account of his 
descent from Hercules, to whom all these cities 
acknowledged themselves bound by ties of more 
than ordinary closeness and strength. 

Whether the warlike tones of the rhetorician 
reached as far as the Persian court, we know not ; 
but, not long afterwards, Darius Ochus, the vic- 
torious Monarch of the East, sent ambassadors to 
Pella to cultivate the friendship, perhaps to spy 
out the resources of Philip. He himself was 
absent from Macedonia, and they were received by 
Alexander, who, although not past the age of boy- 
hood, in the conversations which he held with 
them, displayed such acuteness and resolution, and 



154 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

SO correct an appreciation of the true sources and 
of the proper use of power, that they carried back 
to their master a very formidable report, not only of 
the present, but also of the future greatness of the 
kingdom, the sceptre of which was hereafter to be 
wielded by such a ruler. 

The Argives were indeed willing to become allies, 
and, if allies, necessarily dependents of Philip, not 
because Hercules had been born at Argos, but from 
their jealousy of Sparta. Soon after the peace with 
Athens statues were erected and crowns voted to 
him in many cities of Peloponnesus, while he 
formally declared himself the protector of Messenia, 
and was acknowledged as the champion of the 
Arcadian confederacy which Epaminondas had 
established. So great indeed was his influence 
becoming in those regions, that Demosthenes again 
put forth all his exertions to convince his countrymen 
of the danger with which all Greece was threatened 
by it, and persuaded them to send an embassy, with 
himself at its head, to Messene and to Argos to en- 
deavour to counteract it. By the example of Olynthus 
he warned those cities of the danger of putting 
themselves in the power of Philip : by the disappoint- 
ments which the Athenians themselves had suffered, 
he proved to them the folly of trusting to his 
promises. Philip was too secure of his own power 
and importance to the cities thus addressed to enter- 
tain any real fear of being injured by these represen- m 



i 



KING OF MACEDON. 15^ 

tations ; but he thought it not unbecoming his 
dignity to send an ambassador of high reputation 
for eloquence, Python of Byzantium, accompanied 
by others from the Peloponnesian cities, to Athens, 
to remonstrate with the citizens for having autho- 
rised them, and to give a public refutation of them : 
and Python pleaded his master's cause with such 
courage and effect, that Demosthenes thought it 
necessary to reply to his arguments, which he did in 
one of his most elaborate speeches, the second 
Philippic ; rating the efforts of the Macedonian 
orator so highly that years afterwards he took credit 
to himself with the Athenians for having neither 
yielded to nor been doubted by his violence, but 
having maintained the cause and demonstrated the 
justice of his country. 

Philip was usually tolerant of reproofs or attacks, 
if they did not create any practical obstacle^ to his 
designs ; and he was too much engaged in other 
quarters to resent or pay much attention to these 
denunciations of an orator whose eloquence and 
penetration he had not yet learned to estimate at 
their full value. He never was more fully occupied. 
In the north, and west, and south of Greece he was 
prosecuting his designs with unremitting and almost 
simultaneous activity. He had scarcely returned 
from a successful invasion of lUyria, when we find 
him in correspondence with Ptseodorus, the leading 
man in Megara, by whose treachery he hoped to 



156 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

obtain possession of that most important city. His 
hopes there were baffled by the vigour of the 
Athenians, who sent Phocion to the aid of their 
partisans among the citizens, fortified its harbour, 
Nissea, and restored the walls which connected it 
with the city. Not disheartened by this disappoint- 
ment, he returned into Thessaly to extend his 
influence in that country ; garrisoned the citadel of 
Pherse with his own troops, and, re-establishing the 
ancient division of the kingdom into four govern- 
ments, he placed the chiefs of the Aleuadse, who were 
his own most devoted adherents, at the head of each 
tetrarchy; the harbour dues and customs of the 
kingdom had already been granted to him, and now 
he seized also on the tribute which Larissa, the 
principal town in the north, had so long received 
from the Perrhsebians. Again returning to the 
north-west, he added some important towns to the 
south of Epirus to the dominions of Alexander, the 
brother of Olympias ; and even cherished hopes of 
making himself master of Ambracia, in which, how- 
ever, he was again disappointed through the vigilance 
and energy of Demosthenes, who headed an embassy 
to Acarnania, and succeeded in forming a league 
which he did not think it prudent to attempt to 
dissolve by force. 

The vigorous opposition of the Athenians, and 
an expedition which they had made into Magnesia, 
under Aristodemus, had a manifest tendency to 



KING OF MACEDON. 157 

dissolve the friendly relations that, in name at least, 
existed between them and the Macedonians. Philip, 
therefore, sent Python to Athens a second time, to 
remonstrate against conduct which might not un- 
reasonably be looked upon as an infraction of the 
treaty lately entered into. And, when the am- 
bassador closed an amicable expostulation by an 
offer on the part of his master to remodel any part 
of that treaty which had given umbrage to the 
people, he was heard with great satisfaction, and an 
embassy, of which Hegesippus, an orator of the 
Anti-Macedonian party, was the chief, was sent to 
Macedonia to negociate. The demands, however, 
which Hegesippus was instructed to make, such as 
the cession of Amphipolis and of Halonnesus, and of 
Cardia, the restoration of the towns conquered in 
Thrace after the ratification of the treaty at Athens, 
and the recognition of the independence of other 
Grecian states, which had never been included in it, 
were so inconsistent with the relative positions of 
the two powers, and so completely at variance with 
Philip's intentions, that the King did not conceal 
his pleasure, and even banished the Athenian 
Xenoclides, who resided at Pella, for receiving the 
ambassadors in his house. At the same time he sent 
a reply by letter, in which he offered to give up 
Halonnesus as a free gift to the Athenians; and 
to submit the other points in dispute to the decision 
of impartial arbitrators. The Athenians refused all 



158 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

arbitration, believing it almost impossible to find 
umpires who would be out of the reach of Philip's 
corruption. They refused to accept Halonnesus 
unless it were surrendered as an act of restitution ; 
and this insignificant island continued to be a bone 
of contention for a long time, being more than once 
taken and retaken by the rival claimants. 

While these demands and counter demands were 
travelling to and fro, Philip was not inactive. He 
sent Parmenio with a small force into Euboea, where 
he brought over to the Macedonian interest, Eretria 
and Oreus, the second and third cities in the island, 
the chief city of all was Chalcis, which remained 
firm in its alliance with Athens. In the towns that 
he had acquired on the coasts of the mainland, he 
was building arsenals and ships, and making evident 
preparations for some naval expedition ; and, at the 
same time, he was preparing to complete the reduc- 
tion of Thrace. To the north of the dominions of 
Cersobleptes there reigned a Prince named Teres, 
who had formerly been his ally, but who had lately 
united with Cersobleptes in declaring against him. 
Philip speedily defeated him and overran his country, 
and, meditating its future annexation to his own 
kingdom, built several towns in different parts of it, 
and compelled many of his subjects to migrate to 
that uninviting region. The Grecian cities on the 
coast, and Byzantium, which had of late been 
inclined to favour his side rather than that of the 



KING OF MACEDON. 159 

Athenians, became alarmed for their independence ; 
while Athens herself became anxious for the safety 
of the Chersonese. She had lately sent Diopeithes, 
an energetic though not very politic officer, with a 
small body of troops to that neighbourhood, and, 
though there had been no declaration of war, he not 
only attacked the Cardians, who had received a 
garrison of Philip into their city, but made inroads 
into those parts of Thrace which Philip had lately 
subdued; insulting and plundering some of the 
Macedonian colonists, and even detaining as a 
prisoner Amphilochus, who came to him in the 
character of an envoy to treat for the restitution of 
the property which he had seized. Though it was 
plain that such conduct was a flagrant violation of 
the peace, Philip still contented himself with address- 
ing a friendly complaint by letter to the Athenian 
people, which gave rise to a fierce debate. The 
orators whom he had gained over to his interests, 
aided, it may well be, by some who honestly thought 
the conduct of Diopeithes indefensible, contended 
eagerly that he should be recalled, and his army of 
mercenaries disbanded. But Demosthenes insisted 
that the real question for decision was not whether 
he had acted in the spirit of the peace, but whether 
he had not done the best for the interests of Athens. 
He maintained that the Athenians had as much 
right to assist the Thracians as Philip had to attack 
them ; and, if they disbanded the army, which was 



160 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

on the spot, they would be leaving Byzantium and 
the other cities in that district at his mercy; that 
they ought rather to add to their military establish- 
ments, and to seek by all the means in their power 
to rouse the rest of the Greeks to a sense of their 
danger from the common enemy. The great orator 
prevailed so far that Diopeithes was continued in 
his command, and the success of his arguments and 
the failure of his own expostulations must have 
added fuel to the angry feelings with which Philip 
was beginning to regard the Athenians. He soon 
had more positive causes for discontent. Every 
day was adding to the political influence of Demo- 
sthenes among his countrymen, and he now was 
able to persuade them to send deputies to Euboea to 
arrange operations with Callias, the head of their 
party in that island, and the chief citizens of Chalcis ; 
and, soon afterwards, he induced them also to send 
out to the island a force under Phocion, which drove 
the Macedonian governors and garrisons out of Oreus 
and Eretria. Callias even landed on the Thessalian 
coast, near Pagasse, where he took several towns in 
dependence upon Philip, and several vessels actually 
belonging to him, and sold the crews as slaves ; the 
Athenians identifying themselves with his actions 
by passing a public vote of thanks to him for his 
services ; while, during the time occupied by these 
events, Demosthenes himself went as ambassador 
to Byzantium, and, by his eloquence, brought the 



KINGr OF MACEDON. 161 

citizens of that important city to see so clearly that 
their true interest should lead them to combine 
against Philip, that both they and the neighbouring 
city of Perinthus contracted a close alliance with 
the Athenians. 

Philip, to whose ulterior views nothing could be 
more disadvantageous than the loss of Byzantium, 
resolved to attack these cities at once ; but it seemed 
desirable in the first place to reduce Selymbria (the 
modern Selivria), which lay on the coast of the Sea 
of Marmara between them. He had hitherto for- 
borne, under whatever provocation, from any overt 
acts of hostility to the Athenians ; but^ now that it 
was clear that the open declaration of war could not 
be long delayed, hearing of the approach of a fleet 
of twenty ships under Laomedon, whose object, 
however disguised, was undoubtedly to bring pro- 
visions and succours to Selymbria, he sent Amyntas 
to attack it. The Athenians, disappointed and 
enraged, sent ambassadors to remonstrate with 
him on this open violation of the peace ; and 
still he answered them courteously, that he was 
perfectly aware that, whatever had been the public 
orders given to their admiral Laomedon, the real 
object of the expedition was to relieve Selymbria. 
He would, however, restore the ships, and would 
still respect the peace, if the Athenians did not 
compel him to disregard it by listening to evil 
counsellors. 



162 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Selymbria soon fell,* and he then proceeded to 
lay siege to Perinthus (the modern Erekli), while 
his army laid waste the Thracian Chersonese itself. 
This gratuitous injury amounted in the eyes of the 
Athenians to a positive declaration of war, and they 
accordingly, on hearing the news, passed a decree to 
remove the pillar on which the record of the peace 
was engraved, and to renew the war on their side. 
While, at the same time, Philip addressed another 
letter to the Athenians, complaining of all the 
injuries which he had sustained from them : — *^ They 
had," he said, " insulted his heralds ; they had 
encouraged his allies to revolt ; they had harassed 
his commerce, and invaded or countenanced invaders 
of his territory ; they had co-operated with his 
enemies in Thrace ; and had even solicited the aid 
of the King of Persia, the common enemy of Greece, 
against him ; they had refused his offers to submit 
to arbitration all the matters in dispute between 
themselves and him, and had given themselves up 
to the guidance of leaders whose private interests 

* A great portion of the Life of Philip has to be gleaned from indi- 
rect and scanty sources. Nothing can show more completely the 
uncertain character of the ground on -which the historical inquiries is 
treading throughout this period, than Grrote's words in reference to the 
events which have been described above : "I do not believe that the 
siege of Selymbria ever occurred." — Vol. xi. p. 630, note 1. I have 
followed Bishop Thirlwall, as the highest of all living authorities on 
every question connected with Grecian history or literature, and as 
one whose arguments on this point in particular appear quite con- 
clusive. 



KING OF IklACEDON. 163 

were at variance with the real welfare of the people. 
It would be easy for him to purchase either their 
silence or their advocacy, but he should be ashamed 
to appear to traffic for the goodwill of the nation, 
with such shameless brawlers. They had begun the 
quarrel, and now, with the consciousness that he 
had justice on his side, he woukl defend himself 
to the best of his ability, and he doubted not of the 
favour of the gods, who were the \\itnesses of the 
truth of his assertions." 

The siege of Perinthus called forth the greatest 
efforts of both sides. The town was very strong by 
its natural situation, being built on a promontory 
connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus, 
and descending so precipitously into the sea, as to 
be quite unassailable on that side. Philip's army 
amounted to no less than 30,000 men ; and, 
having long devoted great attention to this jpart 
of the military art, he now brought against the town 
new engines and modes of attack hitherto un- 
exampled. His chief engineer was Polyeidus, a 
Thessalian ; and, under his direction, battering- 
rams of increased size and improved construction 
shook the battlements above, mines threatened their 
foundations below, while huge towers, 120 feet high, 
were wheeled up to the walls, from which soldiers, 
looking down upon even the highest towers of the 
city, harassed the garrison with incessant clouds 
of missiles, and threatened to descend into the city 

M 2 



164 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

itself. Still the besieged continued an undaunted 
resistance : when the outer wall was taken, the 
town itself supplied a fresh line of defence equally 
tenable ; their obstinate courage gave time for 
Chares to be sent to their relief with a fleet and 
army from Athens, and for the Persian satraps to 
supply them with provisions and reinforcements ; 
till, at the end of three months, Philip was forced 
to raise the siege. Marching with speed to Byzan- 
tium, he tried to surprise that important city ; but 
here, also, he was met by an equally vigorous resist- 
ance. The Athenians sent Phocion to the rescue 
with a still more powerful fleet ; the islanders of the 
^gean came to the aid of a city, the safety of 
which was so important to them, as the chief em- 
porium from whence they drew their supplies of 
corn ; and Philip was again baffled. He retired 
toward the Chersonese ; but, on his raising the siege 
of Byzantium, Phocion had anticipated his designs, 
and hastening to the Propontis, had secured the 
safety of that district. Baffled again, the King 
turned his arms in another direction. He had 
been insulted by Atheas, king of the Scythians ; 
and his expostulations had been met with taunts 
and threats. The ill-temper of the barbarian was 
beneath his notice ; but the prospect of repairing 
his finances, which had been severely drained by 
his extensive military preparations, was too tempt- 
ing to be resisted ; he crossed the Danube, routed 



KING OF MACEDON. 165 

the enem}^, and was returning with an immense 
hooty, when he was attacked by the Triballi, a tribe 
occupying the region between Mount Hsemus and 
the river ; and in a fierce battle which ensued, he 
was so severely wounded, that it was reported that 
he was slain. 

While he lay on his sick bed, slowly recovering 
from his wound, circumstances were paving the way 
to the further accomplishment of his designs. A 
new sacred war arose, the pretext for which was 
the fact that, though, two centuries before, the town 
of Cirrha, the Delphic port, had been destroyed 
and condemned, with all solemn formality, to per- 
petual desolation, the Locrians of Amphissa had 
repaired it ; and the deputies present at the Am- 
phictyonic council could, from their very place of 
meeting, behold ships sailing into the well-fre- 
quented harbour. The Amphictyons now inflicted 
a heavy fine upon the Locrians, and appointed 
Cottyphus, a Pharsalian, their general, to enforce its 
payment. Cottyphus failed, apparently because his 
influence was insufficient to collect an army around 
his standard ; and in their second meeting in the 
autumn, the Amphictyons again had recourse to 
Philip, and appointed him, as in the last sacred 
war, the champion of the council, and general of the 
army of the god. 

With great joy did he accept the charge which 
brought him into the neighbourhood of his enemies 



166 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

under the appearance of being engaged in their 
cause ; for it was the Athenian ^schines who had 
first excited the wrath of the Amphictj^ons against 
Amphissa; though Demosthenes warned him then, 
with a foresight which none of his countrymen 
shared, that he was bringing an Amphictyonic war 
into Attica. It was ^schines who had supported 
Philip's appointment as general; and when he re- 
ported his proceedings at Delphi to the people, they, 
by their approbation, ratified and adopted them. They 
soon learnt that they themselves had put weapons of 
destruction into the hands of their enemy. Philip 
passed Thermopylse and entered Phocis ; but, in- 
stead of hastening onwards to the south of that 
district, he halted at Elatea, a town just within its 
northern frontier, and began to repair its fortifica- 
tions, and to put it in a strong state of defence, 
sending envoys at the same time to Thebes to 
announce his intention of marching upon Attica, 
and urging the Thebans to join him with their 
army, or at least to grant him a free passage through 
their territories. 

The news of his proceedings quickly travelled to 
Athens, and caused a consternation as great as if 
the enemy had been at the gates ; for once, as in 
times long gone by, the crisis produced wisdom and 
energy in her councils ; Demosthenes took the lead, 
and the citizens submitted cheerfully to the only 
man capable of guiding them. An army was got 



KING OF MACEDON. 167 

ready to marcli : the fund which had so long been 
wasted on the amusement of the people, was appro- 
priated to their defence, and an embassy, with 
himself at its head, was sent to Thebes to endeavour 
to effect a close alliance with that city on terms of 
perfect equality. Philip had calculated on the 
jealousy that the Thebans had so long entertained 
of Athens ; he was not aware that they had begun 
to look on him with equal suspicion and with still 
greater apprehension. He had lately taken Nicsea 
from them and given it to the Thessalians ; and 
his armed occupation of Elatea seemed to bear 
testimony to designs against their independence 
after he should have subdued his more immediate 
adversary. Demosthenes made no weak use of 
these arguments when he arrived at Thebes. The 
Macedonian ambassadors were already there ; but his 
eloquence, and the honourable terms of the alliance 
which he proposed, turned the scale, and he was 
completely successful. The Athenians were invited 
to send their army into Boeotia, where it was joined 
by a force from Thebes : and the two cities, for the 
first time in Grecian history, were united in cordial 
co-operation for a common object. 

Philip, as soon as he heard from his ambassadors 
of the failure of his negociations, altered his plan, 
and renewed his professions of chastising the 
Locrians ; he sent messengers to his Peloponnesian 
allies to join him, which they could hardly do while 



168 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

Boeotia was hostile, and while the northern coasts 
of the Corinthian gulf were in the hands of the 
enemy. The Athenians, by the advice of Demo- 
sthenes, sent some succours to the Amphissians ; 
and two or three conflicts ensued, with alternations 
of good and ill-fortune, though the balance of suc- 
cess was in favour of the allies, and the advantage 
that they gained on one occasion appeared of such 
importance that public rejoicings were celebrated 
at Athens in honour of it. 

In a very short time jealousies began to spring 
up between the allied nations, and encouraged 
Philip to renew his overtures to Thebes to combine 
with him against Athens. They were rejected, 
however, and the generals of the allied armies, who 
were all of the anti-Macedonian party, determined 
to cut the ground from under the feet of those 
who wavered, by engaging the Macedonians in a 
pitched battle. The numbers on each side were 
very nearly equal, amounting to about 30,000 men. 
But the commanders were very unequally matched ; 
Demosthenes was present in the Athenian army, 
but, though his countrymen had now learnt his 
value as an adviser, he had no military reputation 
and no authority. The Athenian troops were led 
by Lysicles and Chares, the Thebans were com- 
manded by Theagenes ; none of them possessed 
that reputation for either military skill, or good 
fortune, which could give their soldiers much hope 



KING OF MACEDON. 169 

in a contest with a king so brave, so active, so 
skilful, and so successful as Philip. At Chseronea, 
a small town on the western side of Boeotia, the 
two armies met early in August. Philip would 
willingly have renewed the negociations for peace, 
in the hope of detaching the allies from one 
another ; but the influence of Demosthenes pre- 
vailed to persuade them to prefer the risk of a 
battle to the certain destruction of disunion. 
Accordingly, both parties prepared for battle : 
Alexander, who had brought his father a strong 
reinforcement, though it was his first battle, was 
entrusted with the task of opposing the Thebans^ 
while Philip himself led his veterans on the other 
wing where the Athenians were arraj^ed. The 
Thebans proved the most stubborn antagonists; 
the Athenians effected little or nothing against 
the renowned phalanx ; but the Sacred Band, the 
sole relic of the glory of Pelopidas and Epami- 
nondas, proved itself worthy of its founders, till 
it was at last broken by the resistless fury of 
Alexander, and perished to a man on the ground 
which it occupied ; then the rout was complete. 
The Theban loss is not recorded ; of the Athenians 
1000 fell, and 2000 were taken prisoners. But the 
importance of the Macedonian victory could not be 
measured by the loss of the enemy. The confede- 
racy against Philip was broken for ever, and it was 
hopeless to dispute his supremacy for the future. 



170 THE LITE OF PHILIP, 

The consternation at Athens was great, hut still 
Demosthenes, and the citizens who relied upon his 
guidance, could not despair of the republic : they 
began at once to fortify their walls and to send to 
solicit aid from every state that might be willing 
to afford it. Philip, in his exultation, at first acted 
a less worthy part ; he feasted, he drank, he 
danced about his tent and over the field of battle, 
singing in derision of the Athenian people, and of 
his chief antagonist Demosthenes : but, when his 
more sober moments returned, his conduct to his 
prisoners was more worthy of the greatness of his 
victory, and of himself. The Thebans, indeed, he 
looked upon as deserters from his side, and for 
them he had neither mercy nor justice. The 
living captives he sold into slavery, and exacted 
a ransom even for the dead ; but his Athenian 
prisoners he released, uninjured and unpillaged, 
not only exacting no ransom for them, but in 
many cases, even recompensing them for what they 
had lost. 

And the same distinction which he made between 
individuals, he continued between the states. The 
Thebans he stripped of their Boeotian supremacy, 
and placed a Macedonian garrison in the Cadmea. 
To the Athenians he restored Oropus, which he 
compelled the Thebans to resign. He compelled 
them indeed to acknowledge his supremacy, which 
it was impossible to contest ; but of the power 



KING OF MACEDON. 171 

which they really possessed he did not seek to 
deprive them. 

He now proceeded to Corinth, where he presided 
at a congress of deputies whom he had invited from 
all the cities of Greece. Sparta alone sent no 
minister to the meeting. Every other state agreed 
in nominating him the commander-in-chief in the 
war which it was resolved to undertake against 
Persia : and the contingents which were to be 
furnished by each people were carefully assessed 
and ordered to be got ready. As Sparta had 
disdained his invitation, he resolved to humble 
her, and, marching into Laconia with his army, 
ravaged her whole territory as far as Gythium, 
where he erected a trophy to mark the complete- 
ness of his triumph, and the submission which she 
was at last compelled to make to his demands. 
In every other district of Peloponnesus, he was 
received with the highest honour. Statues were 
erected to him at Olympia, at Megalopolis his 
name was given to a portico ; and the King of 
Macedon, who, but a few years before, was required 
to prove his title to the name of a Greek, was now 
the undisputed master of Greece. 

Abroad he was universally triumphant ; the only 
resistance that could be offered to him in the 
whole world was in his own palace. Olympias, a 
woman at all times of jealous and furious temper, 
had not disguised her displeasure when, adopting 



173 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

the eastern fashion of polygamy, he had formed 
additional matrimonial alliances. She had now 
still graver cause for displeasure ; for not only had 
Philip lately espoused Cleopatra, the niece of his 
general Attains, but a rumour had arisen of his in- 
tention to repudiate herself; and Attains had been 
so imprudent as to reveal the hopes which he had 
conceived, that, if his niece should present Philip 
with a son, that son might be declared his heir 
to the exclusion of her own child Alexander. At 
the banquet in honour of the marriage, at which 
Alexander was present, while Olympias was pro- 
bably still residing in the palace, when they were 
all heated with wine, for deep drinking was the 
fashion of the Macedonian court. Attains unabashed 
by the presence of the prince, again gave utterance 
to his expectations of the result of the marriage 
in language at which Alexander justly took offence ; 
and, transported with rage and wine, hurled his 
goblet at his head. Festivity gave place to tumult, 
the partizans of each clustered around him ; 
Philip himself sprang from his couch, sword in 
hand to chastise his son, but stumbled in his 
haste and fell at his length on the pavement ; 
Alexander yielded to his friends and retired, point- 
ing out as he went to the amazed courtiers, that the 
man under whose guidance they were preparing to 
pass from Europe to Asia, was himself incapable of 
walking across a single room. 



KING OF MACEDON. 173 

Olympias and Alexander quitted the kingdom. 
She took refuge with her brother in Epirus, and 
sought to rouse him to avenge her wrongs by war. 
The young prince withdrew into Illyria, against 
which kingdom Philip was still carrying on hostili- 
ties. Philip subdued the lUyrians, and became 
reconciled to his son, who soon gave him fresh 
offence by seeking to counteract his plans for 
the marriage of Arrhidseus, a son who had been 
borne to him by his Thessalian wife Philinna, pro- 
posing to Pixodarus, the father of the intended 
bride and satrap of Caria, to give her in mar- 
riage to himself. Again, however, his father was 
reconciled to him, though he banished his com- 
panions to whose instigation he attributed the 
design. 

The year after the battle of Chaeronea was spent 
in hastening the preparations for the Asiatic expe- 
dition. The advanced guard, under Parmenio and 
Attains, was actually sent forward and established 
in Ionia to secure the affection of the Greek cities 
on the coast, till his own arrival with the main 
army, which was not intended to be delayed beyond 
the next summer. But^ before leaving Macedon to 
set out on so distant an expedition, he desired to 
secure it from danger from any neighbouring power ; 
and, as Olympias was still endeavouring to excite 
her brother to active measures in her behalf, he 
detached him from her cause by the offering of his 



174 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

daughter Cleopatra in marriage. The Epirotic 
monarch gladly accepted the proposal to which 
Olympias herself might have been expected not to 
be averse. And Philip determined to celebrate the 
marriage with great magnificence before his depar- 
ture. He was always inclined to extend his personal 
popularity by hospitality and liberality. And now 
he proclaimed a solemn festival at Mgse, to which all 
the nobles of his own kingdom and of the countries 
dependent on him were invited. From all quarters 
multitudes flocked to the scene of festivity ; every 
city sent its honorary ambassadors with golden 
crowns and complimentary decrees. At a later day 
it was said that dark omens and ambiguous oracles, 
which, if rightly understood, might have restrained 
or damped the universal joy, were not wanting; but 
in the moment of exultation and anticipated triumph 
the King had no room for fear or for suspicion. 
Danger came from a quarter which had been wholly 
overlooked. A young man named Pausanias, of 
noble birth, who had been insulted by Attains and 
Cleopatra, had applied in vain to Philip for redress. 
Finding his prayer disregarded, he determined to 
revenge himself, not on the offender, but on him 
who had refused him satisfaction. In the middle of 
the solemnities, as Philip clad in a triumphal robe, 
and crowned with a festive chaplet, was entering 
the theatre, unattended even by the ordinary guard 
of honour, (so fearless was his confidence in the 



I 



KING OF IVIACEDON. 175 

affections of his people^) Pausanias rushed forward 
and buried a sword in his body. The blow was 
instantly fatal. In the first transports of their rage 
the officers, who overtook the flying murderer, dis- 
patched him upon the spot before he could make 
any revelation of his motives ; so that it could never 
be certainly ascertained whether he had had any 
accomplices or instigators. Olympias was very 
commonly suspected of having, at the least, sus- 
pected his intention : it is even said that she had 
provided horses to secure his escape ; and that she 
paid extravagant honours to his body, crowning his 
head with a golden crown while his body was exposed 
on a cross as a parricide, ani| when it w^as taken 
down, burning it with great solemnity and honour- 
ing his memory with yearly sacrifices. That she 
made no secret of her joy at the death of one 
against whom she conceived she had just grounds 
of complaint, is very probable ; but the evidence that 
has come down to us is not sufficient to justify us in 
fixing the graver charge upon her memory. The 
stories by which it has been endeavoured to impli- 
cate Alexander in the deed are absolutely childish ; 
and the historian who desires to be thought capable 
of appreciating greatness will disdain to vindicate 
a hero from the suspicion of having been an 
assassin. 

Philip died in the forty-seventh year of his age 
and the twenty-fourth of his reign. He had scarcely 



176 THE LIFE OF PHILIP, 

expired when Alexander, the son of Antipater, 
hastened to salute his princety namesake as king : 
who now, without resistance from any quarter, 
ascended the throne of his powerful and glorious 
father, to extend his power, and surpass his glory. 



THE 



LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT, 

KING OF PRUSSIA. 



At the beginning of the eighteenth century, it 
was within the memory of the elders of the existing 
generation, that Eastern Prussia had been held as 
a fief of Poland by the Margrave, or, as he was 
more commonly called, the Elector of Branden- 
burg ; but, in the short time that had elapsed 
since the Great Elector had successfully asserted 
the independence of his dominions, they had so 
greatly increased in prosperity and importance, 
that, in the year 1701, his son was enabled to raise 
himself to royal dignity ; and was recognised by 
the Germanic diet as King of Prussia, under the 
title of Frederic I. He died in 1713, and was 
succeeded by his son Frederic William, who had 
been married some years to a daughter of George, 
the Elector of Hanover, afterwards King of Eng- 
land. They had lost several children, and had 
only one surviving daughter, a girl of two years 



178 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

old, when on the 24th of Januar}^, 1712, another 
son was horn to them, who received the family 
name of Frederic, which he was destined to make 
known and respected heyond the confines of 
Europe, and among nations which had scarcely 
heen reached hy the light of civilisation. 

His governors and tutors were selected with care 
and judgment. His immediate instructor was 
Jandun, the son of a French refugee, hut the 
course of the young prince's studies was regulated 
in its most minute details by the King himself. 
Frederic William had a restless mind which, not 
contented with its proper sphere of action, though 
sufficiently ample for greater powers, was tormented 
hy the desire of meddling with matters which he 
did not understand, and with which a wise man 
would never have interfered. He was not destitute 
of administrative talents, and felt a sincere desire 
to improve the internal prosperity of his country, 
and her importance in the eyes of other nations ; 
hut his mind was too narrow to comprehend an 
enlarged system of either domestic or foreign 
policy ; and his temper was so savage as to neutra- 
lise even better directed intentions. Since the days 
of Commodus or Caracalla, there has been no 
monarch in Europe, the sight of whom was so 
formidable to his subjects. All his greetings, all 
his advice, all his admonitions, came in the uniform 
shape of blows and curses, which were impartially 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 179 

bestowed on every rank and profession, and age 
and sex, of his subjects. Did a clergyman halt 
on his path to admire the new manoeuvres or 
unwonted splendour of the troops, which the king 
himself was drilling, the royal corporal would rush 
at him with uplifted cane, and with a shower of 
stripes, warn him to return to his closet and pray 
for his energetic instructor in his duties. Did the 
judges pronounce a sentence at variance with the 
notions or caprices of the monarch, he would rush 
in a fury into court, and with his heavy boots kick 
them off the bench (a mode of reversing their 
judgments occasionally imitated by his son). Did 
he meet a lady in the street, cane and boots came 
again into requisition, and she was beaten or kicked 
home, to mind her needle and attend to her house- 
hold. 

But, if he was terrible and odious abroad, he was 
far more terrible and odious at home. His subjects 
he could only beat when he saw them, and that 
they could take care should be a rare event; but 
his unhappy children were always in his sight. 
His eldest daughter has left us an account of her 
early years, and relates that, even after she was 
grown up, her father would seize her by the hair 
with one hand, while he battered her face with the 
fist of the other; but the brutality of which he 
was capable was hardly fully developed till his son 
Frederic was old enough to be the subject of it, 

N 2 



180 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

At first it was only a petty meddling tyranny, 
annoying to the tutors rather than to the pupil. 
Nothing was left to their discretion ; the king himself 
marked out not only what hours should be allotted 
to each lesson, but the number of minutes which 
were to be spent by the prince in dressing, and 
washing, and saying his prayers. In his studies 
no indulgence was to be shown to any natural 
tastes which he might develope. He was to learn 
French and German, but not Latin ; he should 
study practical science, and eschew metaphysics ; 
above all he must learn to worship God after the 
Lutheran form, to love his father, and to look 
upon the sword as " that which alone can confer 
honour and glory on a prince." 

Military glory was the only fame which the king 
himself desired ; but he courted it after a fashion 
of his own. He did not aspire to have a victorious 
army, but he wished to have the tallest regiment 
in the world, and he succeeded. Avaricious in 
everything else, he starved his ambassadors abroad,- 
and his family at home, to be able to afford above a 
thousand pounds for a single long-legged recruit 
from his father-in-law's Irish dominions ; for this 
darling object he feared not to brave the enmity 
of the Eoman Catholic potentates, carrying off 
a gigantic Abbe, while sacrificing the mass in the 
north of Italy ; and was even won over to the 
abandonment of his most cherished schemes of 



THE LIPE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 181 

politics by a present of half-a-dozen tall grenadiers 
from the emperor. 

The youthful Frederic was not unwilling to study 
the science of war, but, unluckily for himself, he 
had other tastes too. He had a battalion of noble 
youths, which he himself, when no more than 
twelve years old, was able to exercise in all their 
manoeuvres; but his sympathy with his father's 
taste went no farther. Frederic AVilliam's time, 
when not employed in measuring recruits, was 
devoted to gossiping, smoking, and hunting. His 
son was proud to his inferiors, hated tobacco, and 
took no delight in killing boars or partridges. 
What was worse, he loved fine clothes, had his hair 
curled, and played exquisitely on the flute. His 
father burnt his gold-laced coat, pulled his hair out 
of his head, and broke his .flute over it. Graver 
offences were soon added to the catalogue. The 
Austrian ambassador, Seckendorf, could find no 
better means of hindering a double marriage which 
the queen was bent on promoting between her son 
and daughter and an English prince and princess, 
than those of instilling into the royal ear doubts of 
his son's attachment to the faith of his ancestors. 
Frederic William turned divine. Every day he 
assembled his family in his private chapel, where 
the valet- de-chambre led them in a hymn, and the 
king himself preached them a sermon. Frederic 
and his sister laughed, and such combined dis- 



182 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

loyalty and heresy drove tlie preacher to madness. 
On one occasion he tried to push his daughter into 
the fire ; on another to strangle his son with the 
cord of the window curtain. At last the unhappy 
young man endeavoured to escape into the domi- 
nions of a neighhouring sovereign. This was the 
crowning iniquity. The king had him tried by 
court martial, as an officer in the army, for deser- 
tion ; and, if he had not been deterred by the 
formal remonstrances of the emperor, who claimed 
him as a prince of the Empire, would have had 
him executed for the offence. Katt, a friend, who 
had been privy to the attempt, was put to death 
before his eyes, and he himself was kept in the 
most rigorous confinement in the fortress at Custrin. 
He was now nearly nineteen. At the end of the 
year 1780, he was released from close imprison- 
ment, and removed to a small private house in the 
town, to study finance under M. Hill, the President 
of the Chamber of War, and of the national 
domains. After some months, the favourable 
reports of his diligence and ability, which were 
forwarded to the king by^ the appointed officers, 
procured him permission to visit some of the royal 
forests ; to have two guests a day to dinner, pro- 
vided the expense did not exceed a shilling a-head 
including beer ; and to ride out, provided he was 
always accompanied by an officer, who was to take 
care that neither rides, nor dinners, ever led him 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 183 

into female society, Frederic himself studied to 
regain his father's favour by appearing to take 
greater interest than before in military affairs, and 
in hunting, sending him at times a piece of venison 
or of boar of his own killing ; and in November, 
1731, on the occasion of the marriage of his sister 
to the Margrave of Bayreuth, he was recalled to 
Berlin, and formally reinstated in his military 
rank. 

His marriage had long been a subject of dis- 
agreement between the king and queen, who had 
set her heart on marrying him to the English 
Princess Amelia ; but the Austrian influence pre- 
vailed ; and, in February 1732, Frederic was told 
that his father had selected for his wife the Princess 
of Bevern, a niece of the Empress of Germany. 
He consented, though with some reluctance ; and 
the king, as a reward for his submission, assigned 
him a separate establishment at Euppin, though on 
so scanty a scale, that the emperor's ambassador 
informed his master that it was impossible for him 
to live upon his allowance, and procured him a 
yearly pension from the Imperial Court. 

The year and a half which intervened between 
his first establishment at Ruppin, and his marriage 
in June 1733, was probably the happiest period of 
his life. He had a small suite, mostly of his own 
selection, with whom he used to indulge in almost 
boyish follies. He attended to business and to his 



184 THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEE AT. 

regiment sufficiently to preserve the good opinion 
of the king, who kept himself accurately informed 
of all his proceedings ; but the chief part of his 
time was devoted to his darling pursuits of music 
and French literature, and to other means of passing 
his time less innocent and intellectual. After his 
marriage, the king gave him also a house at Rheins- 
berg, which, for the remainder of his father's life, 
was his principal residence, and the repair and 
embellishment of which was one of his chief occu- 
pations and pleasures, though his allowance was 
still so scanty, that he was obliged not only to con- 
tinue a pensioner of the emperor, but to consent to 
receive large presents of money from the Empress 
of Russia, and also to raise loans from Prussian 
subjects. 

The next year war broke out between France and 
the emperor, kindled by the competition for the 
crown of Poland. Stanislaus Leczinski, who had been 
driven out by Augustus III. of Saxony, was the 
father-in-law of Louis XY. ; accordingly that sove- 
reign took up arms in his cause, and seized Lorraine 
and Bar, which at that time belonged to the Empire. 
The imperial army was commanded by Prince 
Eugene, whose name was still formidable, though age 
had robbed him of his ancient energy ; and Frederic 
William, as a prince of the Empire, sent his son 
with 10,000 men to serve under his banner. The 
campaign, however, was too brief and too unpro- 



THE LITE OF FREDEEIC THE GEE AT. 185 

ductive of great events, to enable Frederic to derive 
any extended military experience from one who had 
once been so great a master of the art of war : but 
Eugene appears to have conceived, and certainly 
expressed to the king, a very high opinion of the 
talent and courage of his son, prophesying that he, 
too, would at some future day become a great 
commander. 

Frederic returned to Eheinsberg, where he passed 
the next few years in a retirement, half voluptuous 
and half literary, holding chapters of the order of 
St. Bayard, a fraternity which he instituted in 
honour of the knight " sans peur et sans reproche," 
and of which he made Fouque, afterwards one of his 
most trusted generals. Grand Master ; having con- 
tinual plays and concerts, in the last of which he 
himself was one of the most exquisite performers ; 
taking great interest in the details of his garden 
and the growth of his different fruit-trees ; and, 
above all, studying mathematics and* French lite- 
rature. 

The king was little inclined to look with favour 
on pursuits of this character ; and more than once 
threatened them w^ith a violent termination ; but 
Frederic kept his regiment in high order, brought 
his father every now and then a giant for his 
grenadiers, sent him melons and asparagus from 
his garden, and averted the impending storm. 

As his end approached, the old king became 



186 THE LIFE OF FKEDERIC THE GREAT. 

entirely reconciled to his son, and expressed the 
greatest affection for, and the greatest confidence 
in him, declaring that he died contented because he 
was leaving such a worthy son to succeed him. 
On the 31st of May, 1740, he died, after having 
delivered to the prince his crown, his sceptre, and 
the key of his treasury, in which were found trea- 
sures to the amount of nearly nine millions of 
dollars, or a million and-a-half sterling, — a sum 
exceeding considerably the yearly revenue of his 
whole kingdom. 

Never since the days of our own Henry V. did 
the possession of a throne work a more instanta- 
neous change in the character of the possessor ; 
the favourites and fe asters of Rheinsberg were in 
high exultation, and wrote to invite their friends to 
Berlin, to partake in the golden age which was at 
hand; but they found that the days of idleness 
were over, and were admonished by Frederic him- 
self that he would permit " no more fooleries." 
The old Prince of Anhalt, to whom, as his most 
distinguished officer, Frederic William, when dying, 
had given his best horse, full of fears for the 
future, came to beg that he and his sons might 
retain their appointments, and that he himself 
might enjoy his former influence, and received his 
answer from the king's own mouth, that he hoped 
all his father's trusted servants would continue to 
serve him with the same fidelity; but that, for 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 187 

the future, no one would have any influence but 
himself. 

The first days of his reign were signalised by 
important reforms ; religious toleration was esta- 
blished by law ; the courts of law were purified ; 
the torture of witnesses was formally abolished; 
many onerous taxes were repealed. The nation 
was suffering from a severe scarcity : on the second 
day of his reign Frederic ordered the public gra- 
naries to be opened, and the corn to be sold at a 
low price to the poor; and there seemed reason to 
hope that this was but the auspicious commence- 
ment of a reign of moderation, wisdom, and huma- 
nity. Over the porch of his palace at Rheinsberg, 
which had been completed in the preceding year, he 
had placed the inscription, " Frederico tranquilli- 
tatem colenti." And though his father had left 
him an army of upwards of 70,000 men in the 
highest state of efficiency, no one suspected that 
either his talents or his inclinations would lead him 
to make a more active use of this force than its 
founder had done. 

He had but just returned from a tour through 
the different provinces on the west side of his domi- 
nions, for the purpose of receiving their homage 
(in the course of which he had enforced his claims 
to Herstal-on-the-Meuse, by invading the territories 
of the Bishop of Liege, to whom the citizens con- 
ceived their allegiance to be due, though he after- . 



188 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

wards ceded the town to the bishop for a sum of 
money), when news arrived at Berhn of the death 
of the Emperor Charles VI., who had aggravated a 
fit of the gout by intemperance in eating mush- 
rooms, and closed a disastrous reign, October 20 ; 
leaving his empire in a state of great disorder and 
embarrassment. He was succeeded in his heredi- 
tary dominions by his eldest daughter, Maria 
Theresa, now Queen of Hungary and Archduchess 
of Austria, who was married to Francis, Duke of 
Tuscany and Lorraine, and was now on the point 
of her confinement. Her father, in spite of ample 
warnings of the trouble which he was preparing for 
her by his delay, had omitted to procure the elec- 
tion of Francis, as King of the Komans; the 
throne of the Empire was consequently vacant, and 
Frederic thought that the embarrassments by which 
the queen was surrounded, the weakness of her 
army, which did not exceed 30,000 men, and the 
state of the treasury, which was almost empty, 
afforded him a good opportunity for extending his 
dominions. As King of Prussia, he was pledged to 
maintain the Pragmatic Sanction, a measure by 
which the estates of the Empire had enabled Charles 
VI. to settle his dominions on his daughter in 
default of male heirs. He was, moreover, under 
especial obligations to the late emperor, whose 
energetic remonstrances had saved his life from his 
father's fury; but these motives were instantl}^ 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 189 

overcome by ambition. In his manifestoes he set 
up an absurd claim to Silesia, a province of Austria, 
all claim to which the House of Brandenburg had 
formally abandoned many years before ; but his real 
reasons were assigned in a letter to one of his 
friends, to whom he confesses that he had been 
seduced by " a desire of glory," and the pleasure of 
seeing his name in newspapers, and, hereafter, in 
history. 

He instantly began to assemble his troops, and, 
when air was ready for the invasion of the Queen's 
territories, he sent the Count de Gotter as his 
ambassador to Vienna to demand the cession of 
Silesia ; though, before the count could arrive at 
the Austrian capital, the Prussian troops were 
actually in the coveted province. The court of 
Vienna had already been warned by Botta, its 
ambassador at Berlin, that the preparations of 
Frederic appeared to be aimed against the queen ; 
but her ministers, who had received from the 
Prussian envoy the most friendly and positive 
assurances of his master's determination to uphold 
the Pragmatic Sanction, put no faith in his repre- 
sentations. They were now undeceived ; the 
message with which Gotter was charged was 
couched in terms of wanton insult. It was 
delivered in a private audience to Francis, whom 
he reminded of his want of money and troops ; 
of his need of the Prussian alliance, and demanded 



190 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

that Silesia should at once be ceded to Frederic, in 
return for which he would protect the rest of the 
Austrian dominions from other enemies, and aid 
Francis in obtaining the Imperial Crown. " Are 
your troops actuall}^ in Silesia ? " asked the duke. 
" They are." With proper dignity the duke refused 
to enter into a discussion, and the Queen herself 
refused to see the ambassador while an invading 
army was in her territories. If the King of Prussia 
retired from Silesia, she would be prepared to treat 
at Berlin. 

But in spite of the remonstrances of his generals, 
who, having looked on the scheme with but little 
favour originally, were additionally discouraged by 
the firm attitude thus assumed by Austria, Frederic 
had already got too firm a hold of his prey to be 
inclined to abandon it at a word. Till the very last 
moment he had dissembled with the Austrian 
ambassador. At last, a day or two after Gotter had 
started for Vienna, he set out from Berlin to join 
his army, which was already on the frontier. He 
had already calculated that France, though unwilling 
to join him openly, would, from her ancient jealousy 
of Austria, look with no unfavourable eye on his 
success, and he now expressed that conviction to 
the French ambassador. " I am going," said he, as 
he put his foot in the stirrup, — " I am going, I sus- 
pect, to play your game. If I throw aces, we will 
go halves." Fortune favoured him where he did not 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 191 

expect it. Just at this crisis, Anne, Empress of 
Eussia, whose favourite Biron, Duke of Courland, 
had been devoted to Austria, died ; and the minister 
of the new emperor was connected by marriage 
wdth Winterfeld, one of Frederic's most trusted 
officers. Winterfeld was instantly sent as envoy to 
Eussia, and before the end of the year, concluded 
an alliance with that country. 

Frederic's first steps were those of unchecked 
triumph. On the 2nd of January, 1741, Breslau, 
the capital of Silesia, surrendered to him. Fortress 
after fortress fell ; indeed they were none of them in 
a state of preparation to resist an attack ; and, in 
the second week of April, Frederic prepared for the 
first time to meet the enemy in the field of battle. 
Maria Theresa found herself in the moment of 
necessity abandoned by her allies. France, when 
applied to, showed an inclination to negotiate with 
Frederic. England, though there was no doubt of 
the friendly disposition of George IL, was too much 
distracted at the time by domestic dissensions to 
afford her any effectual help. The Queen had no one 
to trust to but herself, but she was of too high a 
spirit to prove imequal to the emergency. By the 
beginning of April she had assembled 25,000 men 
under Count Neupperg ; a force which, though far 
inferior in numbers to the whole of the Prussian 
army in Silesia, was nearly equal to the division 
with which Frederic himself w^as present in Upper 



192 THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. 

Silesia. Frederic had with him Marshal Schwerin, 
one of the most experienced and distinguished 
officers in Europe ; and acted under his advice when 
the two armies had approached so near that a battle 
was inevitable. The battle was fought at Molwitz 
on the 10th of April. It was obstinately contested, 
Frederic's cavalry, which he commanded in person, 
was put to flight, and the king himself gave up all 
for lost, and hurried to Oppeln, which he thought 
friendly, but which had been seized by some hussars 
of the enemy, who made prisoners of his com- 
panions, while he, on discovering his error, was 
saved by the fleetness of his horse. Schwerin still 
held his ground, and at last, by the steadiness of 
the Prussian infantry, the fortune of the day was 
retrieved, and the Austrians were driven from the 
field. The numbers of killed and wounded were 
nearly equal; but the Austrians lost 1200 prisoners, 
some cannon and standards ; and, in addition to 
their previous difficulties, were exposed to the evils 
which the ill-success of a first step so commonly 
brings after it. 

The political consequences of the victory were 
very important. Bavaria, the elector of which had 
claims upon some of the queen's dominio^j^s, which 
he had been too weak to advance, now gained 
courage to prefer them openly, and took up arms 
against her. France joined in the war as an ally of 
Bavaria ; the English parliament indeed voted her 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 193 

a sum of money, but George II. was deterred by his 
anxiety for Hanover from committing any acts of 
open hostility against Frederic, and sent Lord 
Hyndford to endeavour to act as meditator between 
the contending parties. A sort of armistice was con- 
cluded, on condition of the queen ceding to Frederic 
the whole of Lower Silesia, and a portion of the 
Upper Province ; and the ensuing winter was spent 
in negotiations. 

Meantime, everything prospered with Frederic. 
Marshal Belleisle overbore the pacific influence of 
Henry, and concluded a secret treaty with him. 
The Elector of Bavaria, who was descended from a 
daughter of Ferdinand I., was elected Emperor of 
Germany. Every day seemed to add to the desolation 
of the queen, who still faced her distresses with 
unbroken spirit. She determined to throw herself 
upon the States of Hungary, and summoned them 
to meet her in their National Diet on the 13th of 
September. In the ancient castle of Presburg, 
wearing the Hungarian dress (its colour was still 
that of mourning for her father), with the crown of 
St. Stephen on her head, and the sacred scimitar at 
her side, she appealed to her nobles for assistance : 
she told them that the invasion of Austria was 
fraught with imminent danger to their country also. 
" The kingdom of Hungary itself," said the royal 
suppliant, " my own person, my offspring, my crown, 
are at stake. Deserted by all, I place my single 



194 THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 

confidence in the loyalty of the illustrious states, in 
the arms and ancient valour of my Hungarians." 
The sight of their beautiful and trusting sovereign 
kindled the enthusiasm of the nobles. The hall 
rang with the clash of swords, and with the loyal 
shout, which was no empty profession, "Let us 
die for our Sovereign Maria Teresa ! " 

Men and money were voted with profusion ; 
crowds from every quarter of the kingdom flocked 
around the royal standard. And it was not too 
soon. The Bavarian troops with their French allies 
had occupied Linz, and were within two days' march 
of Vienna. The hopes of any permanent treaty 
with Frederic were daily becoming slighter. " Don't 
talk to me of magnanimity," said he to Lord Hynd- 
ford ; " a prince ought to regard nothing but his 
interest." And in December, in spite of the truce 
which was still in existence, he invaded Moravia 
and seized Olmutz ; and at the beginning of the 
next year he advanced towards Vienna. Feeling 
himself not strong enough to attack that city, he 
retired towards the Elbe ; and, after much marching 
and counter-marching, was attacked by Prince 
Charles of Lorraine, the brother-in-law of the queen, 
with 30,000 men. His own numbers were somewhat 
inferior, but the superiority of the Prussian disci- 
pline again prevailed, and the Austrians were beaten 
with considerable loss, and forced to retreat into 
Moravia. This second defeat compelled the queen to 



THE LITE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEE AT. 195 

agree to a j^eace, which was signed at Breslau, Jul}' 
28, and by which she ceded nearty the whole of Silesia 
and Glatz to Prussia ; and Frederic endeavoured 
to secure himself further against any future reverse 
of fortune by a treaty with George II., by which the 
two sovereigns mutually guaranteed to each other 
the inviolability of theii' European dominions. The 
French were highly indignant at these negotiations 
being completed without any communication being 
made to them ; but tlie}^ gained nothing by their 
remonstrances, as Frederic made no mysterj^ of his 
knowledge that they also had been secretly nego- 
tiating with Austria to desert him. 

Relieved from the hostility of Prussia. Maria 
Teresa carried on the war with such success against 
the emperor and his French alUes, as to awaken the 
jealousy of Frederic, who had probably never 
intended the peace of Breslau to be one of long 
duration. And the defeat oi the French b}^ Lord 
Stair at Dettingen completed his uneasiness, lest 
the English alliance should make her too powerful 
for his views. Henry was just dead, and the new 
French ministry conceived that he might easily be 
induced to unite with them in a fresh attack upon 
Austria ; and sent Voltaire, with whom Frederic 
had ah'eady made acquaintance, in the autumn after 
his accession, and for whom he expressed the most 
unbounded admiration, to ascertain his inclination. 
Frederic had no opinion of Voltaire's diplomatic 

2 



196 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

talents, and was not influenced by so informal a 
mission as that of a poet furnished with neither cre- 
dentials nor authority ; but the proposals of which 
he was the bearer coincided with his own wishes and 
intentions, and he determined on renewing the 
war. 

As in the former war he had not professed to 
entertain any objects but his own aggrandisement, 
he now, on the contrary, issued a manifesto breath- 
ing nothing but moderation and disinterestedness, 
announcing that he only took arms as an ally 
of the emperor, to restore peace to Germany 
and to Europe, and immediately marched into 
Bohemia with an army of 100,000 men, in 
three divisions. At the beginning of September 
he arrived before Prague, which, after a fort- 
night's siege, surrendered, with its garrison of 
12,000 men; and other towns of less importance 
fell into the hands of the invaders. But, in the 
meantime, Prince Charles effected a masterly pas- 
sage of the Rhine, in spite of the French and 
Bavarian army, and arrived in Bohemia in the rear 
of the Prussians, in the hopes of intercepting their 
communications, and destroying them by famine. 
His scheme of intercepting them was disappointed, 
since the want of provisions which, before his 
arrival, had been severely felt in the Prussian camp, 
had already compelled Frederic to commence his 
retreat; but the prince and Marshal Traun hung 



f 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 197 

Upon Ms rear, and, while they defied all his efforts 
to bring on a regular battle, harassed him by 
skirmishes and attacks, by which his army suffered 
so much that, on its arrival in Silesia, at the 
beginning of December, Frederic had hardl}^ half 
the number of men around his standards that he 
had led into Bohemia only three months before. 

It had been a most disastrous campaign; and 
Frederic showed his mortification by a strange edict, 
forbidding any of his subjects to speak either well 
or ill of it. In later years, he could look on it 
with mere indifference, and impartially trace its 
misfortunes to their proper cause. He says 
himself, in his Memoirs, that his " grand army, 
which was to have swallowed up Bohemia and 
overrun Austria, met with the same fate as the 
invincible armada of Spain." And he owns, too, 
that the disasters which he incurred were the result 
of his own unskilful generalship, and of the supe- 
riority of the tactics of Marshal Traun. His own 
words are that, "he considered this campaign as his 
school in the art of war, and Marshal Traun as his 
master." The next campaign showed how greatly 
he had profited by the severe lesson which he had 
received. His losses, however, had been so severe 
that he would willingly have retired from the war, if 
he could have done so without loss of honour, or 
without making any important concessions. And 
he accordingly applied to England to renew her 



198 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

mediation; but the changes which were taking 
place at the time in the English ministry, in which 
the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham had just 
succeeded Lord Carteret, prevented her interference; 
and, while he was awaiting the result of his applica- 
tion, he still applied himself diligently to recruit his 
army, and to raise funds for the war ; coining even 
the silver plate and chandeliers of his palace at 
Berlin into money. Nor was the Queen of Hungary 
idle on her part. Elated at her success, she issued 
a manifesto charging Frederic with having broken 
the treaty of Breslau, and by such conduct having 
forfeited all claim to Silesia; and on the 8th of 
January, 1745, she concluded a treaty at Warsaw 
with England and Saxony, and the States of 
Holland ; while, before the end of the month, her 
enemy the emperor died, broken down by the un- 
ceasing train of misfortunes which his acquisition of 
the imperial dignity had brought upon him. Hun- 
gary raised her a numerous army, and she received 
important subsidies from England ; so that Prince 
Charles was able to take the field at the head of a 
formidable force, as soon as the return of spring 
allowed of the resumption of military operations. 

Frederic rejoined his army in March, and con- 
tented himself with defensive operations in Silesia, 
to which province Prince Charles was advancing, at 
the head of forces very superior in number to that 
of the Prussians. On the 4th of June the two 



THE LIFE OF FREDEKIC THE GREAT. 199 

armies met at Hohenfriedberg, where Frederic 
showed how great an addition of military skill he 
had derived from his meditations on his reverses in 
the past campaign. During the winter he had paid 
great attention to the discipline of his cavalry, and 
had trained it to make the most rapid charges with- 
out being disordered ; and in this battle it for the 
first time proved superior to the Austrian hussars, 
and contributed greatly to the victory. The rapidity 
of his movements disconcerted the Austrians, who 
were also perplexed with false intelligence, and, in 
spite of the most heroic efforts on the part of their 
leaders, they were routed with a loss of 9000 killed 
and wounded, an equal number of prisoners, and the 
greater part of their artillery, while the loss of 
the Prussians scarcely exceeded 2000 men. Just 
before the battle, a French of&cer arrived in the 
Prussian camp, who had been sent by Louis 
XY. with the news of the battle of Fontenoy. 
Frederick detained him till after the battle, when 
he sent him back with a brief note, couched in the 
following terms : — " Sir, my brother ; I have 
paid at Friedberg the bill of exchange which you 
drew upon me at Fontenoy." In, reality, how- 
ever, he was greatly dissatisfied with the efforts 
which the French king made for the common cause, 
and remonstrated with him with such vehemence — 
saying, among other things, that a victory on the Sca- 
mander or at Pekin would have been of as much real 



200 THE LIFE OF FKEDERIC THE GREAT. 

service as the battle of Fontenoy — that Louis, whose 
reign had not been so fertile in laurels as to be able 
to afford that those which had been gained should be 
disparaged, was greatly offended, and the ill-will 
which he now excited was destined to bear bitter 
fruit to Frederic in future years. 

Frederic again turned his thoughts to peace ; 
and in August prevailed on George II. to exert 
his influence with the queen to renew the treaty 
of Breslau ; promising in that case to give his vote 
for her husband at the approaching election of 
emperor; but Maria Teresa rejected his overtures; 
the election of Francis was already secured, in fact 
he was elected emperor on the 13th of September; 
and this dignity increased her confidence to such a 
degree that she declared that " she would part 
with the gown from off her back, before she would 
abandon the idea of recovering Silesia." 

Again Prince Charles attacked the king with gTeat 
superiority of numbers, but again he was defeated 
with great loss, chiefly through the misconduct of his 
light cavalry; who, having made themselves masters 
of the Prussian camp and baggage, spent the time 
in plundering and getting drunk which should 
have been employed in attacking the rear of the 
enemy and deciding the victory. The battle of Sorr 
convinced the Empress of the impossibility of con- 
tinuing the war with success ; her Saxon allies, too, 
were beaten in one or two trifling actions, and in a 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 201 

great battle at Kisseldorf ; and Frederic made him- 
self master of Dresden, and, with Dresden, of the 
chief revenues and resources of King Augustus ; 
and at that city on Christmas -day, 1745, peace was 
signed, by the conditions of which Maria Teresa 
abandoned all claim to Silesia, and Frederic formally 
acknowledged Francis as Emperor of Germany. 

On the 28th of December, Frederic returned to 
Berlin in triumph, where he was received by the 
people with great joy, who raising shouts of " Long 
live Frederic the Great," conferred on him a title 
which has continued permanently attached to his 
name. He had not, however, any reason to con- 
gratulate himself on having engaged in the last 
war ; the glory of the second campaign, it was 
true, had effaced the recollection of the disasters 
of the first, but he had gained no advantages of 
any kind for his kingdom ; on the contrary, the 
improvements which he had begun to make in 
Silesia had been arrested, his treasury had been 
exhausted, and his army and kingdom had been 
weakened by the great losses of men which had 
been sustained. His only comfort was, that the 
losses of the Austrians and Saxons were still 
more severe. 

He now turned his attention to improving the 
internal condition of his kingdom, in order to 
repair the injuries sustained in the war, hj a 
prudent administration of the resources of peace. 



202 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

He had commenced his reforms immediately after 
the termination of the first war, and he now applied 
himself to carrjdng his views into effect with un- 
paralleled diligence. At the commencement of his 
reign his reply to the old Prince of Anhalt's request, 
that he might not lose his influence in the army, 
had been, that no one would have any influence in 
anything but himself. And, the instant that peace 
was re-established, he began to show that this was 
no unmeaning form of words, but a resolution to 
be most strictly adhered to : to perform it he 
imposed on himself an amount of incessant daily 
labour, to which scarcely any one else would have 
been equal; and to which certainly no other human 
being, not under the necessity of earning his daily 
bread, ever voluntarily submitted. Silesia was one 
of the first objects of his care. Frederic in person 
examined into every detail of its finances ; visited 
all its important towns, and arranged what fortifi- 
cations should strengthen some, what manufactures 
should be established to give employment in others. 
In his hereditary dominions, the administration of 
the law had been in a very uncertain state, owing 
partlj' to the youth and inexperience of the judges, 
and partly to the smallness of their salaries, which 
made them look with eagerness for fees. The 
King issued an ordinance, that from every decision 
of any court of law, there should be an appeal to 
himself, and that every subject should be at liberty 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 203 

to address him personally, respecting any grievance 
by which he might think himself injured. 

Nor was it only for the redress of evils that he 
was to be approached ; every wish, however trifling 
or unreasonable, was likewise to be brought before 
him, with the single restriction, that its expression 
should not take up more room than one side of a 
sheet of paper; a longer letter was likely to be 
tossed into the fire unread, or, if read, was almost 
sure of an unfavourable answer ; but, if couched in 
terms of the required brevity, a request for a grant 
from the treasury to encourage a rising manu- 
facture, or for an order to see a review, were equally 
sure of instant attention. Nothing was so impor- 
tant as to engross the sovereign's whole attention ; 
nothing so trivial as not to obtain some share of 
it. The same day might see him drawing up the 
most minute regulations for the trade and com- 
merce of the kingdom, and deciding on the amount 
of pocket-money which he would allow to be taken 
abroad by some one who, with great difficulty, had 
obtained permission to visit foreign countries ; 
negotiating with the chief potentates of Europe, 
and quarrelling with an opera dancer about her 
salary. To be able to get through this great 
amount of work, he rose at three in the summer, 
and at four in winter ; a quarter of an hour sufficed 
to complete his toilet; and, as soon as he was 
dressed, a clerk brought him the letters which had 



204 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

arrived since the preceding morning. By a mark, 
or a word or two written in each, he indicated the 
answer to he given hy his secretaries, and in the 
evening he affixed his signature to the answers, 
examining a bundle of them taken at random from 
the rest, to guard against any treachery or mistake 
on their part. When this was done, hy which time 
it was eight or nine o'clock, he would walk up and 
down the room playing the flute; and receiving 
any of his cabinet councillors who had business to 
transact with him. At eleven, he reviewed his 
guards, and at the same hour all the colonels of 
his different regiments did the same, wherever they 
might be stationed. After the review, he dined 
with his brothers, and some of his chief officers. 
The time between dinner and seven o'clock was 
devoted to study ; and the day closed with a concert, 
at which he himself was the principal, and one of 
the most skilful performers. 

The same spirit which induced Frederic to 
undertake in person the varied duties of minister 
and clerk, caused him also to engross to himself, as 
king, many of those branches of trade which as 
more extended commercial experience shows, always 
flourish better in private hands, under the influence 
of competition. But, he had no idea of encouraging 
anything by any other means than by doing it 
himself; consequently, to promote the growth of 
tobacco, he established a royal monopoly under 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GEE AT. 205 

the name of the General Tobacco Administration. 
Because France derived a considerable revenue 
from the sale of coffee to Prussia, he established 
a coffee monopoly ; and defined by the most minute 
regulations who might buy it raw, and who must 
be content to purchase it ready roasted and parched 
in royal tin cases. 

In one respect, Frederic might have been pro- 
nounced in advance of his age as a legislator, if 
there were not reason to fear that the real main- 
spring of his conduct was indifference to all 
religion. Whatever his motive was, he established 
the most complete religious toleration in every 
part of his dominions. The religion of Prussia 
was Lutheran; the form which prevailed in his 
new acquisition of Silesia was Koman Catholic ; 
but the Silesians found that the difference of the 
religion they professed, made none in the favour 
with which they were regarded by their sovereign. 
Even Jesuits, when expelled from the countries 
most devoted to the Pope, were protected in 
Protestant Prussia ; and infidels, whose impiety 
was condemned by Parliaments who applauded 
Eousseau and worshipped Voltaire, found safety 
and honourable employment from the champion of 
religious freedom. 

There was another point also in which he showed 
himself more enlightened than his contemporaries, 
and indeed than any ruler of continental Europe at 



206 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

the present day, and it is one respecting which his 
motives are liable to less suspicion. His subjects 
were allowed a most perfect liberty of speaking, 
writing, and publishing whatever they pleased. The 
very lowest lampoons and satires, and libels on his 
administration, or on himself, were secure of perfect 
impunity, and did not lose their publishers the least 
portion of the royal favour. Fully adopting his 
father's maxim, that the sword was the only weapon 
of importance to a king, he looked with supreme 
disdain on all who could wield none of more power 
than a tongue or a pen, and measured all efforts 
of important hostility by one uniform standard. 
Accordingly, Dr. Moore, the author of " Zeluco," 
observes, that nothing in Prussia surprised him more 
than the freedom and openness with which attacks 
upon the King's polic}^, and even upon those parts 
of it, as to which conscience might have been 
expected to make him somewhat uneasy, such as 
the partition of Poland, were sold at Berlin. And 
this at a time when in England the whole weight of 
the government was exerted to crush the author of 
the " North Briton." But Frederic regarded nothing 
but the power or inability of the writers to enforce 
their views by arms. He was told that a particular 
person was in the habit of speaking ill of his govern- 
ment. *' How many thousand men," he replied, 
" can he bring into the field to attack it ? " On 
another occasion, in the early unpopularity of his 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 207 

coffee monopoly, he saw a crowd straining tlieir eyes 
to obtain a sight of a ludicrous caricature of himself, 
with a coffee-mill between his knees, grinding away 
with one hand, and picking up any berries that fell 
with the other. He ordered it to be taken down 
and placed lower on the wall, that people might 
look at it with more ease. He and his people, he 
said, had come to an understanding that he was to 
do what he chose, and that they were to say what 
they chose. And his people were abundantly 
satisfied with a license so unusual from an arbitrary 
sovereign. 

But the most beneficial direction of all that his 
efforts as a ruler took, was that which led him to 
the mitigation of the severity of the law. In the 
middle of the last century, extreme punishments 
were in undiminished favour with all legislators. 
The number of crimes punishable with death in 
England was fearfully enormous, while in France 
criminals, as in the case of Damien, could still be 
exposed to the most inhuman tortures. Frederic 
was the first ruler of a country who aimed at pre- 
venting crime, rather than at punishing it ; and who 
at the same time conceived the idea, that the true 
method of prevention was to be found in diminish- 
ing the severity of the punishment, and especially in 
a more sparing resort to capital sentences. The 
result proved favourable to his anticipations. Before 
the end of his reign there was no country in Europe 



208 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

in which the more heinous crimes were so rare as 
in Prussia, and he had the pleasing reflection that, 
in humanising the laws, he had humanised the 
people also. 

His military code, however, received no such 
amelioration. In the army no error was overlooked. 
No rank could save the offender. The slightest 
violation of the articles of war was visited with such 
tremendous floggings, that the guilty soldier often 
entreated to be hanged as an indulgence ; while any 
failure or want of success in the operations of war, 
was sure to bring on the unlucky officer a deprivation 
of his rank and employment ; perhaps even .banish- 
ment from his country. Frederic's maxim appeared 
to be, that it was only his reliance on the unflinching 
obedience of his army which could enable him to 
treat the rest of his subjects with moderr ion and 
indulgence. 

The multifarious duties which he imposed on 
himself did not prevent his giving attention also to 
the pursuits which embellish life. His taste for 
and skill in music have been mentioned. He was 
anxious also to encourage correct principles of taste 
in his people. With this view, though economical 
and even niggardly in general, he expended large 
sums on the ornaments of i^ublic buildings ; esta- 
blished a board of architecture, and purchased at a 
high price some fine collections of antiquities and 
statues. But his own chief delight, and the object 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. SO 9 

of his most eager patronage was French literature. 
With his own language he had but a slight acquaint- 
ance, not much more than would enable him to 
swear at or gossip with his soldiers ; but French 
had been the passion of his boyhood, his favourite 
tutor had been a Frenchman. In the middle of the 
last century Germany had produced no author of 
high reputation in any path of literature, while the 
glories of the age of Louis XIY. were still the 
common topic of conversation, and the present 
renown of Voltaire filled every mouth, and inspired 
the ambition of every scholar. 

Soon after the peace of Breslau, the king 
instituted the Academy of Sciences and Belles 
Lettres, in imitation of the French Academy ; and 
supported it, by endowing it with a right to the 
exclusive sale of almanacs throughout the kingdom, 
becoming himself the patron of it, and nominating 
a Frenchman named Maupertuis its president. 
Most of the members were of course Germans, but, 
by the king's command, all papers read before it 
were required to be written in French. He himself 
produced many of his works at its meetings ; and 
to enliven its sittings, he invited men of literary 
reputation from every part of continental Europe, 
but above all from France. The luminary, however, 
whom he was most anxious to secure was Voltaire 
himself. Even before his accession to the throne, 
he had been in correspondence with him, and 



210 THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 

Voltaire had corrected and conducted the publica- 
tion of his essay in reply to the "Principe" of 
Machiavelli. A couple of months after his father's 
death, he had gone to Cleves for the express purpose 
of making his personal acquaintance, and he had 
since received him at Berlin when charged with 
the semi-of&cial mission which has already been 
mentioned ; but that had been but a flying visit, 
and Frederic's anxiety was to have him permanently 
fixed at his court, though he was fully aware, not 
only of his irritable unmanageable temper, but of 
his enviousness and meanness. In 1749, he wrote 
to Algarotti, that " it was a pity that so base a soul 
was united to such an admirable genius ; still that 
he had need of him for his study of the French 
language, and so he need not care about his morals." 
And, acting on this principle, he wrote him letters 
full of the most exaggerated flattery and the most 
magnificent offers if he would make Prussia his 
home for the future. Voltaire was well inclined to 
leave France, where a cabal in Paris, at the instiga- 
tion of Madame de Pompadour, the reigning mistress, 
was decrying his merits, and extolling Crebillon as a 
tragic poet at his expense ; but, being very grasping, 
and thinking that he could derive still greater advan- 
tages from the king's undissembled eagerness for his 
society, he haggled about the sums that he was to 
receive ; till Frederic, though generally one of the 
most parsimonious of men, seemed at first to have 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 211 

forgotten all his rules of economy in the emoluments 
which he had proffered for his acceptance, was dis- 
gusted with his rapacity ; refused to increase them ; 
and appeared inclined to transfer his admiration to 
Braculard d'Arnaud, a young poet, who had been 
originally recommended to him by Yoltaire himself. 
He even wrote an ode to him telling him that it was 
no rashness in him to soar to the skies and to equal 
Voltaire ; the Apollo of France was setting, and that 
his turn was come to illuminate the world. 

Venez briller a voire tour, 
Elevez vous s'iZ hrille encore, 
Ainsi le couchant d'un heau jour 
Promet une plus telle Aurore. 

He sent the verses to Paris, where they speedily 
reached Voltaire, who was in bed when they were 
brought to him. In his fury he forgot the refusal of 
his demands; "L'Aurore d'Arnaud," cried he jump- 
ing out of bed and rushing round the room in his 
shirt, "Voltaire a son couchant. Let Frederic 
stick to his government, and not presume to judge 
me. I will go and teach this king, que je ne me 
couche pas encore ; " and in this temper he set out 
for Potsdam. He was received with delight by 
Frederic, and at first he himself was equally 
delighted at his reception. He was treated not as 
a courtier at a king's court, but as a friend visiting 
a friend. The apartments which were assigned to 

him, were the same in which the great Marshal Saxe 

p2 



212 THE LITE OF EEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 

had been lodged, immediately under those of the 
king himself. When he was in the humour to do 
so, he dined and supped at the royal table ; when he 
chose to be by himself, the king's cooks, his coach- 
men and horses, were all at his disposal. The only 
return looked for appeared to be that he should 
enliven the royal coterie with his wit, and guide his 
royal friend in his studies and writings. For 
Frederic was hardly more ambitious of distinction 
as a general and a ruler than as an author, and tried 
his hand at every species of composition. 

Very soon after the Silesian war, he began a 
history of his own times, which, though not 
embellished by any very great beauty of language or 
depth of judgment or feeling, is written in a modest 
and impartial style, singularly admirable in one 
whose own actions and motives are the principal 
subject of his stoYj. But his chief passion as an 
author was for writing verses, for which he had very 
little talent indeed. From this incessant occupation 
nothing could divert him ; it was his amusement 
in hours of leisure, his relaxation amid the pressure 
of business ; his refuge from despair amid the 
disasters and miseries of the Seven Years war. 
Hundreds of lines, the horror of men, Gods, and 
booksellers, were daily submitted to Voltaire's 
unsparing criticism, and few writers for their bread 
would have submitted to it with as much patience 
and humility as was displayed by the most powerful 



THE LITE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 213 

or at least the most renowned sovereign in Europe. 
In his letters of invitation, he had promised him 
that as long as he lived he should be considered at 
Berlin " as the father of literature and of persons of 
good taste ;" and, for a few weeks, Yoltaire flattered 
himself that the allurements which had been held 
out to him had not been too highly coloured. But 
his self-love and vanity had prevented him from 
appreciating the character of Frederic. Those who 
knew him best averred that Lord Marischal Keith 
was the only being for whom he had ever felt a real 
friendship. However that may have been, it is 
certain that his ordinary companions had little 
reason to confide in the durability of his favour. 
Voltaire himself compared Potsdam to the Gardens 
of Alcina, and that sorceress was not more capricious 
than the Lord of Sans Souci. Whatever the talent 
might be which had originally recommended its 
possessors to his notice, they all sooner or later 
learnt to repent of their enjoyment of the fatal gift — 

Conohbero tardi il suo mobile ioigegno, 
Usato amare e disamare h un punto^ 

and in the whole band there was not one with 
whom he was less likely to maintain a durable 
friendship than with Voltaire. Ill-natured practical 
jokes were Frederic's especial delight. He was 
acute at detecting the weak points of those about 
him, and at playing upon them without mercy, 



214 THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GREAT. 

and Voltaire had more weak points than any one 
else. He soon became discontented with the 
emoluments which the king had assigned to him, 
and sought to augment them by unfair encroach- 
ments. Frederic gave private orders that these 
should not be permitted. He complained to 
Frederic himself that his chocolate and sugar were 
not good enough, and were insufficient in quantity. 
His royal friend replied, that it was a pity that 
such trifles should distract so sublime a genius 
from the worship of the jMuses ; he would order 
them to be stopped altogether. Yoltaire indem- 
nified himself by selling the candles placed in his 
own apartments, and stealing the Idng's. Above 
all his other follies, was vanity and jealousy of 
other authors. Frederic again began to praise 
Arnaud's verses in his presence, and to encourage 
his company to extol other indifferent poets. 
Yoltaire wrote satires and squibs on Frederic's 
chief favourites, and told thousands of lies to sow 
dissensions between them, and to conceal his own 
share in the mischief. He gave offence too of a 
different kind. Frederic had a high idea of the 
value of noble descent, and great family pride ; 
and though this was known to Voltaire, he, on 
one occasion, ventured to address a declaration of 
love to the Princess Amelia ; and Frederic chastised 
his insolence on the spot with a severe jest. He 
now began to speak in terms of abuse and disdain 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. SI 6 

of the king before persons who he knew would 
repeat his words. Frederic was nothing better 
than a corporal. He was Csesar and Abbe Cotin 
united. Frederic with more reason pronounced 
'him mad, and had one of his satires publicly burnt 
by the common hangman. At last, after a little 
more than two years' sojourn in Prussia, Voltaire 
returned to Switzerland, from which country he 
kept up a strange correspondence with Frederic : 
telling him that " he delighted in the abasement of 
his fellow- creatures ; he had brought disgrace on 
the name of philosopher ; he had given some colour 
to the slanders of bigots, who say, that no con- 
fidence can be placed in the justice or humanity 
of those who reject Christianity." Frederic replied 
that " it was well for Voltaire that he had to deal 
with one so indulgent to the infirmities of genius. 
He deserved a jail; his talents were not more 
widely known than his dishonesty and malignity." 
After the relief mutually desired from these frank 
and friendly expostulations, the correspondents 
became more reconciled to one another ; and Vol- 
taire enjoyed the triumph of loading the King 
with treacherous consolation after the terrible dis- 
asters of Kolin and Kunersdof. 

His chief residence between the peace of Dresden 
and the Seven Years war, was the Palace of Sans 
Souci, which he built in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of Potsdam, in 1746. In the same spot he 



216 THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEE AT. 

had a vault j)repared, and lined with marble to 
serve for his grave. In one of his walks from 
Potsdam to the place, while the grounds were being 
laid out, he pointed out the grave to the Marquis 
d'Argen, his companion, with this comment, 
" Quand je serai la, je serai sans souci." And to 
this accidental expression, the palace owed its 
name, which was subsequently placed in golden 
letters on its garden front. There he spent most 
of his hours of peace ; there he died ; and in the 
apartment in which he breathed his last, the reve- 
rential affection of his successors has left all the 
furniture unchanged, in the exact state in which 
it was at that instant ; fabling that even his favourite 
watch stopiDed the moment that he expired. The 
garden is not perfect in shape, but the circum- 
stances which prevented its being so, are highly 
to the honour of a monarch in the possession of 
such despotic power as Frederic. On two sides 
it was bounded by fields, belonging in one instance 
to a poor widow, in the other to a miller, both of 
whom valued their paternal inheritance so highly 
that, like Naboth of old, they refused either to sell 
it for money, or to accept more valuable land in 
exchange for it. Most of the courtiers insisted 
that the king had a right to compel them to part 
with their land if he gave them an advantageous 
price for it ; and Frederic himself was so much 
irritated with their refusal, that he said one day 



THE LITE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 217 

to the miller, " Do not you know that I can take 
your mill from you without giving you a farthing 
for it ? " "I know that you could, please your 
majesty," said the miller, " if it were not for the 
Chamber of Justice at Berlin." He was so flattered 
with the answer and with the compliment that it 
implied to his efforts to purify justice throughout 
the kingdom, that he abandoned the idea, and 
altered the plan of his garden. 

In the ten years that elapsed since the peace 
of Dresden, Prussia made great advances in in- 
ternal prosperity. Marshes were drained; great 
numbers of villages and small towns were built, 
and peopled with settlers allured from foreign 
countries, and skilful in foreign arts, which Fre- 
deric was desirous to naturalise in Prussia. The 
system of agriculture and the breeds of cattle 
were greatly improved. The internal traffic of the 
kingdom was facilitated by new roads and numer- 
ous canals ; and, though Frederic was no friend 
to importation, which, in accordance with the poli- 
tical economy of the day, he thought injurious 
to a country by draining it of its money, he 
founded the Port of Turnemunde, and improved 
the other harbours of the Baltic ; and established 
at Emden, a mercantile company, to trade with 
China, to embark in the whale and cod-fishery, 
and to export the productions of Prussia to other 
countries. 



218 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

But this prosperity was about to be rudely 
checked. Maria Theresa had never forgotten the 
loss of Silesia ; its recovery was the dearest wish 
of her heart ; and circumstances now seemed likely 
to place it within her reach. Peace had brought 
her kingdoms also a great increase of riches and 
internal prosperit}^ and enabled her to make 
greater efforts than had ever been in her father's 
power, though his dominions had been more ex- 
tensive. Very soon after the peace of Dresden 
she had concluded a treat}^ with Eussia, by which, 
among other articles, it was ^Drovided that if Frederic 
ever attacked either Austria or Eussia, she should 
be assisted by an army of 60,000 Eussians, to 
recover Silesia; and besides her political obliga- 
tions, the Empress Elizabeth had personal reasons 
for regarding Frederic with dislike, on account of 
the comments he was continually making in public 
on her licentious conduct. "Look," said he one 
da}^ pointing to one of his hussars, *' that is the 
handsomest fellow in all Prussia. I am going to 
send him as plenipotentiary to Eussia." The King 
of Poland was easily won over to join the con- 
federacy. One more ally was wanted ; it was plain 
that England and France would not be on the 
same side ; and ancient recollections seemed to 
point to England, which, besides the memory of 
its previous enmity, had just received additional 
offence from Frederic, in the vigour with which 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 219 

he had protested against engagements into which 
she had entered with Eussia, by virtue of which, 
a Eussian force was to be furnished for the pro- 
tection of Hanover. The English ministers, how- 
ever, had given still greater offence to the Austrian 
court, by the haughty tone which they had 
assumed as the saviours of the Empire in the 
Silesian wars ; and by their interference in the 
family politics of the Empress-Queen. Moreover, 
it was plain that France was able to be of far 
greater service if she could be won over ; but the 
difficulties in the way of such an alliance seemed 
at first sight insuperable. For more than a century 
it had been established as the ruling principle of 
French policy to exert all its endeavours to bridle 
the House of Hapsburg. With Austria, France 
had many points of antagonism : with Prussia 
none : with Austria, the oldest history recorded 
no union : with Prussia, France had been allied 
in the last war, and, since the last war, had been 
united by a treaty of close confederacy, which, 
though on the point of expiring, was naturally 
expected to be renewed almost as a matter of 
course. 

These weighty considerations were to yield to 
personal pique, and to the genius of one man. 
Before the end of the last war some sharp letters 
bad passed between Louis XY. and Frederic, whom 
no motives of policy could restrain from exhibiting 



220 THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 

on all occasions his scorn of the weakness and 
worthlessness of his confederate, and from uttering 
bitter jests on the faithlessness and profligacy of 
his mistress. The Austrian ambassador at Berlin 
took care that neither Elizabeth nor Madame de 
Pompadour should be left in ignorance of the lan- 
guage which was habitually held concerning them, 
at the royal table ; and the French mistress was 
nearly as powerful as the Eussian empress. 

The new Austrian minister was a man well able 
to take advantage of the openings thus afforded 
him. No small portion of the disasters which had 
befallen Maria Theresa in the first years of her 
reign, had been owing to the distractions of her 
councils and the weakness of her ministers ; but in 
the year 1753 she, fortunately for herself, placed 
Kaunitz at the head of her affairs. He had previ- 
ously been ambassador at Paris, where his polished 
manners and accomplishments had rendered him 
a general favourite ; and where his penetration had 
given him a thorough insight into all the under- 
currents by which the course of the French ministry 
was likely to be influenced. He represented to 
them with great plausibility that the policy so long 
pursued by both kingdoms had been a mistaken 
one ; that neither had gained any advantage by the 
long series of wars in which they had been engaged; 
on the contrary, they had only been weakened and 
impoverished; while petty powers, like ^ sop's wolf 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. S21 

after the battle between the lion and the tiger, had 
profited by their exhaustion, and had raised them- 
selves at their expense. Such had been and such 
must be the fruit of their divisions, while, united, they 
might defy the world. Nothing was so important to 
France as an extension of territory on the side of 
the Netherlands ; and that extension Austria alone 
could give, and willingly would give, when the pro- 
posed alliance had restored Silesia to the sceptre of 
the empress. A further temptation was added, which 
it is impossible to think of without amazement, and 
to record without shame. No sovereign of more 
dignified purity than Maria Theresa had ever shed 
a lustre on a throne ; no w^oman had ever been 
more distinguished for all the graces and virtues 
which are the glory of her sex. Of all the mis- 
tresses who for a hundred years had made the 
courts of France and England infamous, the lowest 
and the most abandoned was the butcher's daughter 
who, as Marquise de Pompadour, at this time ruled 
king and court, and to her the proud and spotless 
Empress- Queen condescended to write in terms of 
respect and affection ; to call her *' princess," 
*' cousin," *' her dear sister," in the hope of reco- 
vering by her aid the territories which had been so 
unjustly and so treacherously wrested from her, and 
which were still so unceasingly regretted. Still, 
the creatures of the mistress, though eager for the 
alliance with Austria, hesitated at breaking entirely 



22S THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

with Frederic, when, at the beginning of 1756, they 
received information that he was negotiating a 
treaty with England, with which country, though 
at peace in Europe, France was carrying on an 
active war in India and North America. They 
immediately sent the Due de Nivernois as ambas- 
sador to Berlin to remonstrate with Frederic against 
any such treaty as a violation of that still subsisting 
between himself and Louis; to persuade him to 
invade Hanover ; and to offer him the island of 
Tobago, which, owing to the conflicting claims of 
France and England, it had been agreed to leave 
uncultivated. Frederic with a smile requested the 
duke to find a fitter person than himself to be 
governor of Barataria, and showed him the treaty 
with England which was already signed. There 
was no longer any pretence for delay ; and on the 
5th of May a defensive alhance was signed between 
France and Austria. 

Frederic obtained early information of the danger 
which was impending over him. England was his 
only ally, and the irresolution and imbecility of her 
councils, which had just lost her Minorca, gave him 
but little encouragement to rely on any effective 
support from her, while the whole continent of 
Europe was united against him. His feeling was 
not very far from despair, and, with the resolution 
never to fall alive into the hands of his enemies, 
he provided himself with a speedy and sure poison, 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 223 

which he continually carried about his person till 
the end of the war. His enemies were assembling 
their forces all around him ; and, though their 
measures were professedly only defensive, he 
doubted not that they would attack him the 
moment that they felt strong enough. He deter- 
mined to anticipate them, and sent an ambas- 
sador to Vienna to demand a positive and plain 
statement of the views of that cabinet ; he did not 
want, he said, an answer in the style of an oracle : 
as his minister only received an evasive reply, he 
announced that he considered that tantamount to 
a declaration of war, and commenced hostilities by 
falling at once on the nearest and most defenceless 
of his enemies, the Elector of Saxony. It was 
not strange that he at first met with success ; there 
was no single one among his enemies provided with 
so well-appointed and well- disciplined an army ; 
nor was any other kingdom unencumbered with 
debt, while he himself was possessed of a consider- 
able treasure accumulated during the years of 
peace. 

The Saxon army was under 20,000 men. In the 
last week of August, 60,000 Prussians overran the 
country, blockaded the Saxons in their camp at 
Pirn a, a town of great natural strength on the 
Elbe, a few miles above Dresden, and took the 
capital, pillaging the house of Count Bruhl, the 
king's chief minister, whom Frederic regarded as 



S24 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

his principal enemy, in spite of his promise that 
all private property should be respected ; and by 
threatening the queen with personal violence, he 
obtained the State papers, in which he relied upon 
finding the justification for his apparently unpro- 
voked attack. The evidence which they furnished, 
was hardly as conclusive as he had expected, espe- 
cially as regarded the accession of Saxony to the 
confederacy against him ; but it was proved that 
Austria, France, and Kussia, had formed plans for 
the eventual spoliation of Prussia ; and his minister, 
Count Herzberg, drew up a memorial to justify the 
commencement of the war, which, though the 
Austrian ministers published a reply to it, they 
were unable to refute. 

The Saxons held out so gallantly at Pirna, that 
Marshal Browne had time to bring an army to their 
relief, with which he attacked Frederic on the 1st 
of October, at Lowositz ; he greatly exceeded the 
Prussians in number, but, with great want of skill, 
neglected to avail himself of the advantages which 
the ground might have afforded him. The battle 
was stubborn ; and Frederic, at one time, gave up 
the day as lost. The loss on each side was nearly 
balanced ; but the Austrians were forced to retreat, 
and leave the Saxon army to its fate ; it was com- 
pelled to surrender, and the greater portion of the 
men enlisted in the service of their conqueror. 
While in Dresden, Frederic had treated the citizens 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 225 

with great humanity, and had gained great popu- 
larity among them by attending the Protestant 
Church, while their own monarch, Augustus, was a 
Eoman Catholic. Now, however, that he was 
master of the whole country, for Augustus had fled 
into Poland, he levied contributions of both men 
and money with extreme rigour. 

He wintered at Dresden, and at the beginning of 
1757, entered into a new treaty with England, 
where Pitt had just become Secretary of State, 
though it was not till a later. period of the year that 
he was able to exert the full power of his office. 
Meantime the enemaes of Prussia were making 
increased efforts to render the coming campaign 
decisive. The German Diet raised an army to 
succour the empress ; Russia and France greatly 
increased the contingents which they had agreed to 
furnish, if all promises were fulfilled ; it seemed 
likely that the confederates would surround their 
prey with half a million of armed men, while the 
Prussian forces, with their English and Hanoverian 
allies, amounted to scarcety half that number. 
Towards the end of April, Frederic began the cam- 
paign by entering Bohemia with 30,000 men in 
four divisions, while Prince Charles bf Lorraine, 
the Austrian commander-in-chief, was detained by 
illness at Vienna. He soon recovered, however, 
and joined Marshal Browne, who, with 45,000 men, 
was awaiting the enemy near Prague. On the 6th 

Q 



S26 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

of May the Prussians attacked them with gTeat 
impetuosity, each army amounting now to about 
70,000 men. The prince was seized with a relapse 
in the middle of the battle; Browne was mortally 
wounded; and the Austrians were defeated with 
great slaughter, and the loss of many prisoners and 
cannon. Frederic, however, purchased his victory 
dearly; there had fallen on his side nearly 18,000 
men, and among them the veteran Marshal 
Schwerin, who, says his gTateful master, in his 
History, "was alone worth 10,000 men;" other 
officers, whom he calls " the pillars of the Eussian 
infantry," had perished. It was plain that he could 
not afford many such victories ; but fortune had yet 
heavier losses in store for him. 

Prince Charles, with the remainder of his armj^ 
threw himself into Prague ; and, though the Prussian 
army was numerically far inferior to the gai'rison 
of that city, when reinforced to such an extent, 
Frederic conceived what Napoleon has pronounced 
" one of the boldest plans imagined in modern 
times," the idea of starving it to a sm-render, as he 
had starved the Saxons at Pirna. Accordingly 
he surrounded it with fortified Hues, keeping up 
a terrific bombardment, while Prince Charles re- 
mained, in patient obedience to his orders from 
Vienna, waiting for the succours with which Marshal 
Daun was hastening to his relief. Early in June 
they approached; and Frederic perceived that a 



THE LIFE OP FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 227 

too great confidence in his superiority had exposed 
him to the danger of being completely surrounded. 
Leaving one division to maintain the siege of 
Prague, he marched to join the Prince of Bevern. 
When he had taken him under his command, he 
had with him 34,000 men ; and with them he pro- 
ceeded to attack Daun, who, wdth upwards of 
50,000, w^as posted in a very formidable position 
near Kolin. It w^as the 18th of June, a day 
destined to become still more celebrated hereafter, 
as that on which a still greater warrior than Fre- 
deric was forced to bow to the superior skill of his 
unconquerable rival. The king carefully recon- 
noitred the Austrian lines : it was plain that he 
could only fight at great disadvantage ; he was 
at a distance from any reinforcements ; his enemies 
might be expected to gather round him in still 
more formidable numbers ; and his only chance of 
safety lay in a battle and a victory. Soon after mid- 
day he attacked Daun's right, with an impetuosity 
that almost succeeded in breaking it ; but the 
Austrians stood their ground bravely for some time. 
At last, the continued vigour of the assault made 
Daun begin to think of a retreat, and Frederic, 
allured by the advantages which he had apparently 
gained, altered his dispositions in the middle of the 
engagement ; and the confusion which this caused 
was increased by Manstein, one of his generals, who, 
from misunderstanding an order, quitted his position 

q2 



238 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

to dislodge a body of Croats. The Saxon cavalry 
took instant advantage of the opening thus made 
n the Prussian line, and fell upon their infantry, 
attacking it in front and rear. Burning to avenge 
the disaster of Pirna, they gave no quarter ; and the 
battle was won. Frederic made vain exertions to 
retrieve the day. Six times he in person led his 
cavalry, his sole remaining hope, to the charge ; six 
times they were repulsed and mowed down by the 
superior artillery of the Austrians. He tried in 
vain to rally his broken squadrons for a seventh 
charge. "Blackguards," said he, " do j^ou want to 
live for ever ? " But it was of no use ; he collected 
forty men for one more effort, at last ; they, too, 
fled. Still he advanced, till an English officer asked 
him whether he was going to storm the batteries 
by himself. Once more he surveyed the enemy's 
lines with his glass, and rode slowly from the field, 
directing Prince Maurice to conduct the retreat 
towards Nimburg. To that town he himself rode 
forward, and there he was found in the evening, 
seated by himself on the side of a well, drawing 
figures in the sand with his stick, and musing over 
the calamity that had befallen him, and on the best 
means of repairing it. 

It seemed, indeed, as if it could hardly be repaired. 
At the beginning of the contest the odds were so 
much against him, that one defeat might have been 
expected to be ruinous ; and one so complete as this 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 229 

could hardly have been, looked for by his most san- 
guine enemies. He had lost above 13,000 men; his 
guards were almost destroyed; he had lost his cavalry, 
which he had trained so carefully ; he had lost half 
his artillery ; and, worse than all, he had lost the 
chief fruit of his victory at Prague, namely, the repu- 
tation of invincibility, and his enemies had acquired 
confidence to venture on bolder measures. Fortu- 
nately for him, Daun knew better how to gain a battle 
than how to improve a victor}^, and allowed him to re- 
join the troops which he had left at Prague without 
molestation, though more active conduct would have 
destroyed the last remnant of the beaten army. 

No man ever lived more capable of taking advan- 
tage of the respite thus afforded him than Frederic. 
He soon recovered his spirits, writing to Marshal 
Keith, that it was natural for fortune to have turned 
her back upon him. " She is a female, and I am not 
a gallant; so she has declared for the ladies who 
are at war with me." He raised the siege of Prague 
and retreated into Saxony, but the divisions of his 
army with which he was not present, and especially 
that of his brother William, suffered terrible losses 
on their march. Misfortune had not yet done her 
worst : before the end of the month his mother died. 
He had at all times treated her with great respect 
and affection, and he felt her loss bitterly. In July 
all hopes of succour from the British and Hano- 
verian reinforcements were put an end to by tlie 



230 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

defeat of the Duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck ; 
and the convention of Closterseven, which that 
prince subsequently entered into, left the French 
generals at liberty to co-operate more immediately 
with their allies. In August, Prussia itself was 
invaded by a formidable Eussian force under 
Marshal Apraxin. The Prussian general, Lehwald, 
attacked him with very inferior numbers : a severe 
conflict ensued, attended with nearly equal loss on 
each side, and Frederic's diminished army could not 
afford to fight drawn battles. Berlin itself was 
summoned by a corps of Austrians, and compelled to 
pay a heav}^ ransom to save itself from storm and 
pillage. Frederic was almost in despair, and began 
to think seriously of ending his troubles by a volun- 
tary death ; but with him such feelings always 
yielded speedily to braver resolutions. He tran- 
quillised his mind by writing letters upon letters of 
bad verses to his different correspondents, and 
determined on one more effort to make head against 
his enemies. Besides the French army under the 
Duke de Eichelieu, which was now set free by the 
Duke of Cumberland's defeat, another under the 
Prince de Soubise was advancing through Saxon3% 
and was already at Erfurt. Frederic bribed Riche- 
lieu into inactivit}^, and* marched against Soubise, 
whom he met at Rosbach on the 5th of November. 

Military operations are so much guided by the 
natural circumstances of the countries in which they 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT, 231 

take place, by the hills and defiles which afford 
favourable positions, by forests and rivers and roads 
which impede or facilitate the march of armies, — that 
it is not strange to find the same ground the field of 
battle in successive wars ; but it is very singular 
how often the same day has heard the cry of battle 
raised by different generations of the same people. 
It has already been remarked that the Prussian day 
of triumph at "Waterloo was the very same which 
had been so disastrous to them at Kolin ; and that 
which now witnessed the disgrace of the French 
arms at Eosbach was, after the lapse of almost a 
centmy, destined to shine upon one of its inost 
glorious triumphs, when, after struggling for hours 
against almost overpowering odds. Bosquet's gallant 
division and its British allies, a mere handful of 
men in comparison of the hosts that had assailed 
them, stood victorious on the hills of Inkermann, 
down which they had driven five times their number 
of enemies, who combined in vain the discipline of 
civilisation with the ferocity of the savage. 

The armies met at Rosbach, but there was no 
battle. Frederic's manoeuvres were novel and un- 
usually skilful. Soubise had neither skill nor 
energy, nor even much courage ; of confidence, he had 
more than enough. His numbers nearly trebled those 
of the king, and, on the preceding day, he had sent 
off a courier to Paris to announce the victory which 
h^ intended to reap, and the certainty of his making 



232 THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 

prisoners of Frederic and his entire army. The 
moment that he was attacked he was seized with a 
X^anic, which communicated itself to ahnost his whole 
force. He had with him two regiments of Austrian 
cuirassiers, who, with an equal number of French 
cavalry, made a resolute stand against the charge 
with which General Seidhtz began the contest ; but 
they were overpowered and destroyed, and the rest 
of the army fled almost without striking a blow. So 
instant and so universal was their flight, that there was 
not even time for the greater part of the Prussians, 
few as they were, to join in the battle. Frederic's 
whole loss in killed and wounded was barely 500 
men ; while he took 5000 prisoners, with five gene- 
rals, and nearly all the French artillery and baggage. 
He treated his prisoners with great kindness, telling 
them that he " could not yet accustom himself to 
consider the French his enemies," and imputing his 
victory wholly to the incapacity of their commander, 
who had given them no opportunity of displaying 
their valour. He was not so courteous to all. He 
had intercepted letters from the Queen of Poland 
and Saxony, who was lying ill at Dresden, exulting 
m anticipations of his destruction ; and now, in un- 
chivalrous revenge, he caused the Te Deum to be 
sung under his windows, and salutes in honour of his 
victory to be fired at the back of her palace, and the 
insult, added to her mortification at the disappoint^ 
ment of her hopes, caused her death in a few days. 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 23 S 

Without delay, Frederic marclied against the 
Austrians under Prince Charles, who on the 22nd 
of November had defeated the Prince of Bevern with 
great slaughter, taken him prisoner, and compelled 
Breslau to surrender tw^o days after. By a march 
of unusual rapidity, he arrived in the neighbourhood 
of Lissa, on the 4th of December. His army, rein- 
forced by the remnant of the Prince of Bevern's^ 
under Zieten, amounted to nearly 40,000 men. 
The Austrians were at least 60,000. His officers 
represented to him the danger of attacking a 
superior army so strongly posted. He replied that 
he had no alternative, but to conquer or perish. 
Daun in vain recommended caution to Prince 
Charles, who was persuaded by his flatterers that he 
was marching to a secure victor}^, and quitted a 
position in which he could hardly have been assailed 
with success, to invite the attack for which he 
thought himself amply prepared. 

The importance of the coming battle prompted 
Frederic to use means to which he had never before 
resorted to encourage his army. He summoned his 
generals and chief officers around him, and, in a 
brief and energetic speech, roused them to the 
efforts which he expected of them, by reminding 
them of the glory they had already won under his. 
banners. It was only that day month that, with 
greater odds against them, they had routed the 
French at Kosbach. His own determination was,. 



234 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

to conquer or to die. He was sure that tliey were 
inspired in the same resolution. Cravens might 
retire without reproach ; but those who resolved to 
share his fortunes must be prepared to shed their 
life's blood in his cause. He dismissed them, bid- 
ding them speak to the soldiers as he had spoken to 
them, and without farther delay made his disposi- 
tions for battle. According to Napoleon, one of his 
severest critics, the battle of Leuthen was his master- 
piece. The Austrians fought with great courage 
and resolution, but Frederic's tactics at last pre- 
vailed. It was nearly sunset when his cavalry broke 
the squadrons of the enemy ; but, when they did, 
the rout was complete. He had lost 6000 men, but 
the killed and wounded of the Austrians were still 
more numerous ; and, besides the slain, 20,000 
prisoners, and the capture of all the baggage and 
artillery, bore testimon}^ to the completeness of the 
victory. 

The effects of these victories can hardly be over- 
stated ; not only was Silesia immediately recovered, 
but they created such enthusiasm for him in 
England, where Pitt, now supreme over the whole 
ministers, was one of his ardent admirers, that he 
had no difficult}^ in concluding a new treaty witli 
George II., by virtue of which he was to receive 
ver}^ large subsidies ; and the King of England, 
annulling the convention of Closterseven, applied 
to Frederic to lend him Prince Ferdinand of 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 235 

Brunswick, as a commander for tlie troops with 
which he was ready to co-operate with him. 

The year 1758 was less marked by important 
events. Prince Ferdinand beat the French at 
Crefeld, and the Austrians under Loudon defeated 
Zieten, as he was marching to join Frederic. 
Frederic failed in an attempt to reduce Olmutz, and 
was compelled to retreat into Silesia; and the first 
battle of importance was fought on the 25th of 
August, against the Eussians, who, under Count 
Fermor, had overrun East Eussia; they had almost 
destroyed the town of Custrin, and were proceeding 
to attack the fortress, when the King arrived and 
compelled Fermor to fall back upon Zorndof, and 
to fight a battle. As usual, Frederic was at least 
one-third weaker than his antagonists. The battle 
was long and bloody, for, exasperated at the ravages 
which the Eussians had committed, he ordered his 
troops to give no quarter. At last he defeated them, 
but not without losing 12,000 men of his small 
army ; though he inflicted a far greater slaughter 
on the enem}^, who retreated towards the Baltic. 

Frederic now turned towards Saxony to oppose 
Daun and Loudon ; but success had made him 
over-confident : the position he chose at Hochkirch 
provoked the remonstrances of his friends, and 
stimulated the enterprise of his enemies. On the 
13th of October they surprised his camp by a night 
attack, and in a desperate conflict, in which Marshal 



236 THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 

Keith was killed, and Frederic himself had a horse 
shot under him, they defeated him with great loss 
of men, taking also his artillery, tents, and baggage. 
As the disaster of Kolin had been followed by the 
death of his mother, so a day or two after the 
disaster at Hochkirch, he received the news of the 
loss of his favourite sister, the Margravine of 
Baja^euth, to whose pen we owe our knowledge of 
most of the events of his youth. He felt it bitterl}^ 
and consoled himself with a new kind of composition, 
writing; a sermon in her honour. But he had no 
time to vraste in unavailing sorrow. Daun, though 
through over caution he had failed to improve, as 
he might have done, the victory he had lately gained 
at Hochkuxh, was still barring his way into Silesia, 
where an Austrian army had invested the important 
fortress of Neisse. It was of the highest importance 
to relieve it, but apparently almost impossible to do 
so, and quite impracticable without exposing Saxony 
to the victorious Austrians. Daun felt confident of 
success, and wrote to Harsch, the commander of the 
besieging army, that he could proceed quietly with 
his siege ; that Frederic was cut off from Silesia, 
and that, if he should attack him, he hoped to send 
him a good account of the result. In fact, it was 
only by forcing his way through Daun's army, or 
by a very circuitous route, that it was possible for 
Frederic to reach Xeisse. He chose the latter 
alternative ; and, marching with extraordinary 



THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 237 

rapidit}^ turned Daun's flank, crossed the Queiss, 
entered Silesia, and, by the mere terror of his name, 
drove Harsch into Bohemia. He then returned with 
equal speed to save Dresden, on which Daun had 
marched the moment that Frederic had left the road 
open. The suburbs were burnt, and the city was 
in imminent danger of entire destruction, when 
Frederic returned, and Daun, not caring to risk a 
battle, retired into winter quarters in Bohemia. 

His victories caused the greatest exultation and 
confidence at Vienna. After the battle of Kolin, 
the Empress founded the order of Maria Theresa, in 
honour of that victory. And now, Clement XIII. , 
who had lately succeeded Benedict XIV. in the 
papal chair, sent Daun a consecrated sword and cap, 
in the front of which was a dove embroidered in 
pearls, to encourage him to further exertions in 
defence of the orthodox faith against the heretical 
King of Prussia. 

Frederic, however, attached more weight to his 
negotiations with England, which the successes of 
Prince Ferdinand on the Ehine, and his own victory 
at Bosbach had rendered unanimous in his favour. 
The English minister again granted him amj)le 
subsidies, by the aid of which he was enabled 
largely to recruit his army, which he did in all 
quarters ; even in the dominions of his enemies, 
compelling his prisoners also to enter his service, 
and he likewise added greatl}' to its efficiency by 



238 THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 

embodying a small brigade of liorse artillery, the 
first force of that kind ever seen. 

He began the next campaign on a more defensive 
system ; gaining with his lieutenants some slight 
advantages over small parties of the enemy, but 
remaining with the main body of his army in his 
camp at Landshut. Meantime the Eussians, under 
Soltikof, advanced in great force to the frontiers of 
Poland, to join Loudon ; and Frederick sent Wedel 
to take the command of the army in that district, 
with orders to attack the Eussians at all risks, in 
order to prevent a junction which would be so 
dangerous to his interests. His numbers, however, 
were unequal to the enterprise ; and on the 23rd of 
July, he was defeated with considerable loss, and 
driven back across the Oder. The danger from the 
Eussians appeared so serious, that Frederic deter- 
mined to oppose them in person. He left his 
brother Henry in command of a force sufficient to 
hold Daun in check, and with the rest of his army 
marched to join Wedel. He had about 50,000 men 
under his banners, but Soltikof had been joined 
by the indefatigable Loudon, with a division of 
Austrians, and almost doubled his numbers. On 
the 12th of August, Frederick attacked him at 
Kunersdof. Hills, woods, and morasses, all lent 
strength to the Eussian position, but such was the 
energy of the Prussians and their king, that for a 
while they carried everything before them. They 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 239 

took prisoners, redoubts, and guns, and Frederic 
sent off a courier to Berlin to announce his victory. 
Had he been content with the advantages that he 
had already gained, the courier would have been a 
true messenger, but he desired to annihilate the 
Eussians ; in vain was it represented to him that 
his men were exhausted with six hours' fighting 
under a summer sun. He led them on for one 
more charge ; as he advanced, up sprang Loudon 
with his Austrian division, chiefly cavalry, who had 
been held as a reserve ; fresh batteries thundered 
on the advancing column ; the Prussians wavered, 
were broken, and fled. A few minutes changed their 
apparent victory into a rout. The king himself 
narrowly escaped being taken prisoner. In vain he 
tried to rally his men, hoping at least to end his own 
troubles by an honourable death ; but though almost 
every one around him fell, though his horse was 
killed, and even his clothes pierced by several balls, 
he remained unharmed, and was at last prevailed on 
to retire. From a miserable farm-house, which had 
been plundered by the straggling Cossacks, he sent 
off a second despatch: " Let the royal family leave. 
Berlin, send off the archives to Potsdam. The 
capital may make terms with the enemy." 

The loss of the enemy had been severe ; but it 
was far exceeded by his own. He had lost nearly 
19,000 men, and nearly all his artillery. Terrible as 
the defeat of Kolin had been, it was far exceeded in 



240 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

distress by this. He might well despair ; and for a 
day he did despair. It is clear from letters that he 
wrote to his friends, and the instructions which he 
drew up for his generals, that he intended them to 
be the last that he should ever write : that he was 
resolved to put an end to his life. And if his con- 
querors had followed up their victory and pursued 
his beaten army, it is probable that he would have 
done so : but it was his singular good fortune 
throughout this war, that those who had gained 
advantages over him never knew how to use them, 
and he was not a man to whom a respite could be 
given with im]3unity. Jealousies now sprung up 
between the Russians and Austrians. Soltikof's 
troops had borne the loss, those of Loudon had 
reaped the honour of the day. Loudon in vain 
pressed Soltikof to pursue the king, without delay ; 
assuring him that he might easily make Frederic 
himself prisoner within three days. The Russian 
was immovable, and equally deaf to the remon- 
strances of Daun, who could obtain no other reply 
from him than that he had gained two victories with 
his troops, and now it was Daun's turn to exert 
himself. 

Thus left to himself, Frederic soon recovered 
from his despair, and began to re-assemble his troops. 
The consequences of his late defeat were very 
serious — Wittenberg, Torgau, Leipsic, Dresden, all 
fell one after another. A ray of comfort beamed on 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 241 

Mm from the news of the victory of Minden, which 
Ferdinand, who had been beaten on the Ehine in 
the earlier part of the year, gained over the French 
on the 1st of August. He was soon again at the 
head of 30,009 men. Wittenberg, Torgau, and 
Leipsic were recovered. He conceived the idea of 
cutting Daun off from Bohemia, and sent Finck 
forward with a powerful division of 12,000 men ; 
but, before he coukl support him, Daun attacked 
Finck with overpowering numbers, at Maxen, and 
the whole brigade were taken prisoners. A few days 
later another smaller corps were forced to surrender 
at Meissen. Still, with his forces thus diminished, 
Frederic maintained his position, so as to cover 
Saxony, against Daun, who was unable to attack 
him with advantage : and the two armies went into 
winter quarters with their outposts almost in sight 
of one another. The season was one of almost 
unprecedented severity, and the Eussians, as the 
historian of the war relates, " died in their cabins 
like flies." The Austrians suffered equally, and in 
addition to the terrors of the weather disease broke 
out in their camp. 

Frederic again made overtures for peace ; but 
refused to abandon Silesia ; with singular impru- 
dence, while seeking to negotiate with France, he 
continued his correspondence with Voltaire, sending 
him odes satirising the king and Madame de Pom- 
padour, which Voltaire, who had never forgiven him 



242 THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 

for their quarrel in Prussia, sent to the Due de 
Choiseul. The English ambassador at Berlin, 
Sir A. Mitchell, wrote to his Court that nothing 
could equal the king's indiscretion, that he con- 
tinued writing without reserve to Voltaire, who was 
employed by his Court to draw his secrets from 
him ; and yet, at the very time he was revealing to 
him all his hopes and projects, he never spoke of 
him but as the man of the worst heart and the 
greatest rascal living. 

Peace therefore could not be : so again he pre- 
pared for war. It was no easy matter to find 
means ; but he laid his hands on the whole available 
resources of the countries in his power. Not only 
did he treat Saxony as a conquered province, 
exacting vast contributions of money, seizing the 
corn and cattle, and cutting down the woods 
throughout the whole kingdom ; but even Prussia 
and Brandenburg met with no milder fate : the 
coin was debased, the civil officers were left unpaid. 
The whole country was drained of money, pro- 
visions, and means of transport : whole districts 
became deserts. Everything was made to yield to 
the king's determination to maintain his army in 
efficiency. He sought in vain to effect a divi- 
sion, by raising enemies against the Emx3ress 
in Italy and Spain, where the death of K^ng 
Ferdinand, and the consequent succession of 
Charles, king of Naples, to the throne, appeared 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 243 

likely to cause important changes in the politics 
of those countries. 

The population had been so thinned by the dis- 
tresses of the war, that all Frederic's exertions 
did not enable him to muster 100,000 men around 
his standards for the campaign of 1760, so that 
tasks were assigned to the different divisions of his 
army, to which they were wholly unequal. Fonque, 
who, with little more than 10,000 men, had to 
cover Silesia, was attacked by Loudon with three 
or four times his number, and every man of his 
army was either killed or taken. Glatz was taken 
immediately afterwards ; but the Austrian com- 
mander failed in his attempt on Breslau. Frederic 
himself was at first not more successful; he tried 
in vain to recover Dresden, though he almost 
destroyed the city itself by the bombardment which 
he directed against it. He re-entered Silesia in 
the hopes of finding an opportunity of attacking 
one of the armies of the enemy with advantage. 
The celerity of his movements baffled Daun. At 
last his position at Leignitz appeared to afford the 
Austrians an opportunity of overwhelming him ; 
and, on the 14th of August^ they prepared to attack 
him the next morning at so many points, that it 
seems impossible that he could have escaped com- 
plete destruction, when all their plans were defeated 
by the treachery of an Irish officer in the Austrian 
service, who, offended at some imaginary injury, 

E 2 



244 THE LIFE GF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

deserted to Frederic, and betrayed the plans on 
which Daun and Loudon relied for success. In a 
moment Frederic quitted his camp, leaving his 
fires lighted to deceive the enemy; and, meeting 
Loudon's division with his whole army, which how- 
ever was still inferior in numbers to its enemies, 
defeated it with considerable loss. The battle of 
Leignitz, however, was not of sufficient importance 
to impart any real strength to him, or to disma}^ 
his enemies. They proceeded to take Torgau and 
Berlin, where they seized on all the money remain- 
ing in the Treasury, and on great quantities of 
military stores ; and Frederic, full of despondency, 
again began to think of terminating his life. He 
wrote to his old friend the Marquis d'Argens, that 
" his strength was leaving him ; and, that to speak 
the truth, even hope, the only consolation of the 
unhappy, was beginning to desert him. He was 
like a mutilated body, from which each day some 
of its members are lopped off." 

He determined to try one more battle ; and on 
the 3rd of November, attacked Daun, who occupied 
a very strong position near Torgau. The whole 
day long he fought in vain; wounded by a spent 
ball, he had retired from the field ; and Daun, who 
was likewise severely wounded, had despatched a 
courier to Vienna with the news of his victory, 
when, after sunset, Zieten found a road to the hill 
in the rear of the Austrians ; seized upon it, and 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 245 

assailed them again. Frederic in person renewed 
the attack in front ; and the defeat was changed 
into a complete victory. 

This was the last military event of the year, and 
the next year passed without any operations of 
paramount importance, the only exploit worth re- 
cording heing the surprise of Schweidnitz by 
Loudon, which deprived Frederic of almost half 
Silesia : the political events were of a graver cha- 
racter. George II. of England had died in October 
1760, and the influence which Lord Bute possessed 
over the young king, drove Mr. Pitt to resign office 
in the course of this summer. His retirement was 
foUow^ed by peace between France and England, 
which, in. consequence, abandoned the alliance with 
Frederic. It seemed as if this new policy of England 
would set the seal to his ruin, when it was almost 
counterbalanced by the death of the Empress of 
Russia, since Peter II., who succeeded her, was his 
most ardent admirer. The new Emperor at once 
made peace with him, requested a commission in 
his army, and sent him a reinforcement of 15,000 
men. As soon as it joined him in July, Frederic 
put himself in motion to oppose Daun; but he 
had scarcely matured the plans which this new 
alliance suggested to him, when they were dashed 
by a revolution in Russia, which ended in the death 
of Peter, and the elevation of his consort, so cele- 
brated as the Empress Catherine, to the throne. 



246 THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 

She at once broke off the alliance with Prussia ; 
and ordered Chernicheff, the commander of her 
auxiliary force, to return to Russia. Frederic pre- 
vailed on him to delay his departure for three days, 
and in the interval, while his army was strengthened 
by the appearance made by the Russians, though 
they took no part in the operations of the day, he 
attacked Daun at Burkersdorf, drove him from his 
ground, and recovered Schweidnitz. This was the 
last bloodshed in the war. The allies of both 
Austria and Prussia had made peace, and they were 
left alone to carry on the strife ; Austria was more 
powerful, and had not been so much distressed by 
the war as Prussia ; but the Tartars of the Crimea, 
who had latety sought the alliance of Frederic, 
and had promised him a considerable reinforce- 
ment, threatened the Empress with hostilities, while 
the Turks were menacing the frontiers of Hungarj^; 
and influenced by these considerations, the Empress 
consented to make peace, which was signed at 
Hubertsburg, on the 5th of February, 1763, be- 
tween her, Frederic, and Augustus of Saxon3^ 
Frederic retained his conquest of Silesia, but agreed 
to vote for the election of the Empress's son, Joseph, 
as king of the Romans; to evacuate Saxony, and 
to restore the archives and artillery which he had 
carried off when he first became master of Dresden. 
Frederic returned in triumph to Berlin, which he 
had not seen for six years, and was received by the 



THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEE AT. 247 

acclamations of his people, who could scarcely con- 
tain themselves for joy at the termination of the 
war. The war, indeed, was over ; but it was not 
so easy to efface the terrible memorials which it 
had deeply imprinted on all the countries engaged 
in it. No one had gained by it; all, except Kussia, 
had greatly embarrassed their national treasuries : 
Prussia, indeed, had incurred no debt, but the specie 
of the kingdom was exhausted, the coinage was 
debased ; enormous contributions had at one time 
or other been exacted from Berlin and other parts 
of the kingdom that had been in the possession of 
the enemy; and in things of more importance than 
money, Frederic's dominions had suffered far more 
severely than any country. We learn from the 
contemporary historian of the wars, that a great 
part of Pomerania and Brandenburg was changed 
into a desert. Large tracts of land lay uncultivated. 
The very seed-corn had been consumed, and famine 
and disease had swept away the herds and flocks 
of whole districts. The disease of the population 
was still more grievous. There were whole pro- 
vinces where there was scarcely a "man left, and 
where the most laborious agricultural work could 
only be performed by women ; a traveller passed 
through seven villages, and only met one human 
being, the curate of one of them. It was computed 
that one-sixth of all the men in the kingdom capable 
of bearing arms, had actually perished on the field 



248 THE LIFE OP FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

of battle ; while the ravages of famme and disease 
had been even more terrible and more universal 
than those of the sword. The glory of a successful 
resistance to such a host of powerful enemies as had 
threatened him with utter destruction, w^as the only 
consolation afforded to Frederic for the terrible 
misery which had thus almost overwhelmed his 
subjects. This misery he now, as far as it was in 
his power, set himself to repair with great energy, 
granting large sums to some of the towns which 
had been the principal sufferers, to enable them 
to repair their damages ; making loans to the 
landed proprietors, and encouraging public works, 
especially roads and canals, to give employment 
to the people. He established also great numbers 
of manufactories, many of them for articles hitherto 
unknown in Prussia as native x3roductions ; and 
banks, for which he himself provided a portion 
of the requisite capital : he also induced English 
farmers to settle in his dominions, in the hope 
of teaching his subjects a more skilful system 
of agriculture. His ruling passion, however, still 
betrayed itself by the continual care which he 
bestowed on his army, and with which he augmented 
its numbers, till they amounted to a standing 
force of 200,000 men, and, more laudably, by the 
noble military hospital which he founded at Berlin, 
with the inscription — not more honourable than 
true — " Lseso sed invicto Militi." 



THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 249 

The Grand Seignor, whose warlike preparations 
had had no small share in determining Maria 
Theresa to consent to the peace of Hubertsburg, 
was eager, perhaps in anticipation of hostilities 
with Austria, to cultivate the friendship of Frederic, 
and sent one of his principal nobles, with magnifi- 
cent presents, to congratulate him on the peace, 
who arrived at Berlin in the winter of 1763.* 
Frederic had a most superb suit of royal robes 
made to receive the ambassador; but, when the 
time came, could not be persuaded to change his 
old hat, his brown misshapen boots, and threadbare 
uniform ; and the Turk, whose whole retinue blazed 
with gold and jewels, could not restrain his asto- 
nishment at the little, shrivelled, shabby old man, 
who yawned undisguisedly while he was deli- 
vering his address. Nor was the Sultan the only 
sovereign out of the pale of Christendom, whose ears 
had been reached by the fame of the great king 
of Prussia. Some years afterwards a citizen of 
Embden was wrecked on the coast of Morocco, and 
the barbarian emperor, to testify, as he said, his 
love and admiration for Frederic, sent him and his 
crew back in safety and honour to their country,, 
ordering his cruisers to respect the Prussian flag 
wherever they met with it. 

Frederic continued his literary pursuits with 
undiminished eagerness. Maupertuis was dead; 
and he sought, though without success, to prevail 



250 THE LIFE OF FEEDERIC THE GREAT. 

on D'Alembert to settle in Prussia as his successor 
in the chair of the Academy at Berlin. He also 
established numerous schools and colleges to pro- 
mote education among his subjects, (though his own 
indifference to, and ignorance of, his native lan- 
guage was so great, that to the end of his life he 
was wholly unacquainted with the works of Elop- 
stock, or Wieland, or Lessing, or any of those 
writers who had already vindicated the claims of 
German authors to an honourable place in the lite- 
rature of nations), and it was with this view that he 
welcomed the Jesuits in his dominions, when their 
order was suppressed by Clement XIV. in 1773, look- 
ing on them as peculiarly capable of educating youth. 
For some little time after the peace of Huberts- 
burg, he kept aloof from foreign politics^ maintain- 
ing alliance with no country but Russia. England 
he regarded with great aversion, after the change 
in its politics towards the end of the war ; and 
though his way of showing it was somewhat ridi- 
culous, consisting chiefly in condemning a charger 
to which he had given the name of Lord Bute, to 
be degraded from his military rank and employed 
in drawing carts and water-barrels about his 
grounds ; it was nevertheless a deeply-seated feel- 
ing which influenced him during the remainder of 
his life. For the French he had no more liking; 
and testified great joy at the successful resistance 
which the Corsicans at first made to their invasion 



THE LIFE OF FEEDEEIC THE GEEAT. S51 

in 1769, drinking Paoli's health publicly at dinner. 
But when the war between Turkey and Kussia 
appeared likely to lead to the great aggrandisement 
of the latter power, Frederic became jealous of her 
success, and endeavoured to take steps to check it, 
by contracting more friendly relations with Austria. 
The emperor Francis died in 1765, and his son 
and successor, Joseph, had conceived a singular 
admiration for the persevering enemy of his family, 
and had long expressed an eager desire to make his 
personal acquaintance. The wish had, hitherto, 
been ungratified ; but this year he travelled incog- 
nito, and met Frederic on his Silesian tour at 
Neisse, where they had many private political con- 
ferences ; and agreed on the conduct to be observed 
in Germany in the event of war breaking out be- 
tween the western powers of Europe : and the next 
year Frederic returned the emperor's visit at Neu- 
stadt in Moravia, where more important measures 
were brought under discussion. While the two sove- 
reigns were together^ an application arrived from the 
Sultan, requesting their joint mediation between him- 
self and Catherine, which they were willing enough 
to afford, as the Eussian conquests of Moldavia and 
Wallachia gave great uneasiness to them both. 

It was not probable, however, that Catherine 
would relinquish those territories without an equiva- 
lent ; and Frederic proposed to the Emperor a 
means of finding her one, which should also give 



252 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

himself an increase of territoiy, of which he was 
very desirous, with a view to consoHdating his 
dominions towards the Baltic, and which, at the 
same time, should afford Austria a compensation 
for Silesia. He now, therefore, opened to the 
Emperor the scheme of the partition of Poland ; * 
into which it seems prohahle that Joseph himself 
willingly entered from the first, though he did not 
communicate it at once to the Empress ; and the next 
year Frederic sent his brother Henry to Petersburg 
to discuss the scheme with Catherine, who embraced 
it with alacrity, as it was certain that she would, any 
project for extending her dominions in any quarter. 
Poland had long been in a state of almost 
irremediable confusion and anarchy ; which had 
become worse than eyer since the death of Au- 
gustus III., and the elevation of Stanislaus Ponia- 
towski to the throne. Eeligious differences had added 
their exasperation to the disorders forced upon the 
countr}^ by its constitution ; the Koman Catholics 
forming what they called the confederacy of Bar, 
from the fortress of Bar in Podolia, which they 
seized as their head quarters ; and the Dissi- 
dents, (or Dissenters as we should call them), im- 
ploring the armed intervention of foreign powers. 
Catherine encouraged the Dissidents, and Maria 

* In attributing Xhe origination of the design of partitioning Poland 
to Frederic, I follow Coxe, wlio says that he derived his information 
from Count Herzberg himself. 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 253 

Theresa the Koman Catholics, till the whole country 
became a scene of bloodshed and desolation. These 
circumstances completely disabled it from offering 
any resistance to foreign enemies. France, in conse- 
quence of a long series of misgovernment, was too 
much embarrassed to enter into a war in defence of 
abstract principles of justice, for objects in which she 
was not immediately concerned. England was 
beginning to be fully occupied with her unhappy 
quarrel with her North American colonies. And 
even Stanislaus himself, though attached as a Pole 
to the undivided nationality of his country, and, as a 
king, unwilling to see the finest half of his dominions 
severed from his crown, did not dare to throw him- 
self unreservedly on the affections and loyalty of his 
subjects, a large body of whom had pronounced 
his deposition, and had even attempted to assassinate 
him. Catherine would have preferred taking her 
I)roposed share of Poland and retaining the provinces 
she had wrested from Turkey at the same time. 
But Frederic alarmed her with the prospect of 
such rapacity driving Austria certainly and perhaps 
himself also, to an alliance with the Sultan. 
While the negotiations were going on, a body of 
Austrian troops seized upon the lordship of Zips, 
on pretence of its having belonged to Hungary in 
former ages; and Catherine, observing that, "in 
Poland it seemed to be only necessary to stoop 
down in order to pick up whatever one wished," 



254 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

and fearing lest, if she dallied too long, her rivals 
would be before-hand with her, and would secure 
all the advantages for themselves, gave up her 
claims to the Principalities on the Danube, and 
signed the convention for the partition of Poland, 
in February, 1772. Frederic then proceeded to 
press Austria to accede to it, in accordance with 
the understanding to which he had come with 
Joseph : and, though Kaunitz was inclined to draw 
back, and would willingly have been contented with 
what had already been gained, he yielded at last, 
and the treaty was finally signed by the three 
powers on the 5th of August. Stanislaus and the 
Diet were partly coaxed and partly terrified into 
submission ; and after some delay gave their formal 
ratification to the act, and appointed commissioners 
to carry it into effect. The portion which Frederic 
received was in extent inferior to that obtained by 
his confederates ; but its situation made it of great 
value. He became master of the provinces of 
Pomerelia, Culm, Marienburg, and a part of Great 
Poland ; and the possession of those districts, which 
had previously separated the kingdom of Prussia 
from Pomerania and Brandenburg, gave great 
solidity and strength to the whole of his dominions. 
A more flagrant act of usurpation without a 
shadow of pretext, it is impossible to conceive, and 
the spoilers did not even perform the promises by 
which they had pretended to excuse it. They all 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 255 

indeed, and especially Frederic, laboured to improve 
the condition of the territories, which had now 
become their own, and the task was easy, for no 
districts in Europe were in a more deplorable state. 
The soil, which nature had made very fertile, was 
for the most part uncultivated; the population, 
thinned by pestilence and civil war, was immersed 
in poverty and ignorance ; the towns were in ruins ; 
the courts of justice had fallen into disuse; schools 
had never existed. A few years saw roads made, 
marshes drained, the towns repaired, population 
increasing, order restored, and a solid foundation 
laid for the prosperity of the province. 

But no means were taken to render that portion 
of Poland, which was left independent, more secure 
than before from the disorders which had afforded 
the plea for its dismemberment. On the contrary, by 
perpetuating the principle of elective monarchy, and 
of what was called the " Liberum Veto," by which 
any single member of the Diet could control all its 
proceedings and even dissolve it, the allied spoilers 
seemed to be providing for a future state of anarchy 
to give a colour to future acts of spoliation. 

The alliance between Frederic and the Emperor 
was not destined to be of very long duration ; at 
the end of 1777, Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, 
died, and was succeeded by his distant cousin, 
Charles Theodore, the Elector Palatine, who had no 
children, and whose next heir was a very distant 



256 TSE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT, 

kinsman, the Duke of Deux-jDonts. The fiefs how- 
ever, which had belonged to the late elector, were 
claimed by the Emperor as having escheated to 
him ; and, partly by the terror of a numerous army, 
which he assembled without delay on the borders of 
the electorate, and partly by promises of making 
ample provision for the Elector's natural children, 
Joseph prevailed on him to sign a convention ceding 
the districts claimed, and the Duke of Deux-ponts 
promised his accession to the agreement ; but 
Frederic was still jealous of Austria, and eager to 
prevent his aggrandisement in any quarter. He 
found that Catherine shared his feelings, and that 
the court of France, in spite of the marriage of the 
king to Marie Antoinette, was not very friendly to 
the Emperor's pretensions; relying, therefore, on 
the acquiescence of France and Eussia, he prevailed 
on the Duke of Deux-ponts to withhold his 
signature at the last moment, and then addressed a 
strong remonstrance to the Emperor. The negotia- 
tion was carried on by a personal correspondence 
between the two sovereigns. Joseph tried to win 
his consent to the proposed measure by promising 
the connivance of the empire at his incorporating 
Anspach and BajT'reuth with the Prussian dominions, 
but Frederic esteemed himself sure of these 
provinces eventually without making them the 
subject of a bargain now ; and, with professions of 
moderation somewhat at variance with his previous 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 257 

practice, expressed great disapprobation of powerful 
states parcelling out small ones for their mutual 
aggrandisement. He threatened war; and the 
Emperor, who had raised his army to a high state 
of efficiency, and had just confidence in the abilities 
of the veteran Marshals Lacy and Loudon, and a 
wish to measure his own military skill with that of 
the great conqueror of the age, was even more desirous 
of it than himself. Maria Theresa had viewed these 
proceedings with the greatest repugnance ; and, even 
after the war began, opened a private negotiation 
with Frederic, in the hope of terminating it. 

On the 6th of July, Frederic entered Bohemia 
with 80,000 men ; but the Emperor with Lacy 
occupied so strong a position at Konigsgratz, with a 
still more powerful force, that he was unable to 
effect anything against it. In another direction 
Prince Henry likewise invaded the same kingdom 
with an army of equal numbers ; but he too was 
baffled by Loudon, who defended the line of the 
Iser with great skill. The campaign passed without 
a single action of importance ; and in May, 1779, 
peace was made at Teschen, the Emperor abandon- 
ing his claim to the Bavarian provinces, except the 
district between the Danube, the Lm, and the Salza, 
which was ceded to him. 

The Empress died the next year; and, five years 
afterwards, Joseph renewed his attempt to become 
master of Bavaria, offering Charles Theodore in 



258 THE LIFE OF FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 

exchange the Austrian Netherlands, with the ex- 
ception of Namur and the Duchy of Luxemhourg, 
with the title of king of Burgundy ; hut his views 
were again counteracted by Frederic, who, never 
desisting from his darling object of depressing, and, 
when he could not depress, of at least preventing 
the aggrandisement of Austria, proposed to revive 
the league of Smalcalde, and to unite the principal 
powers of Germany in a confederacy to maintain 
the integrity of each respective state. His pro- 
posal was promptly acceded to by the principal 
states of the Empire ; and a treaty based upon it, 
was signed at Berlin in July 1785. 

With these exceptions, the last years of Fre- 
deric's life were peaceful and uneventful. He 
declined any participation in the confederacy to 
establish the principles of the armed neutrality 
which the Empress of Eussia proposed to him 
during the war between America and England ; 
and occupied himself solely in promoting the 
internal prosperity of his kingdom, living among 
his subjects with great familiarity, and encouraging 
them to seek access to him on all occasions. No 
man ever spoke more gracefully of the duties of 
royalty; he wished to secure, he said, and if he 
could only examine into everything himself, he 
would secure, the happiness of all his subjects. 
On one occasion some deputies from Greifenburg 
in Silesia, the whole of which town had been de- 



THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 259 

stroyed by fire, came to thank liim for a raagni- 
ficent grant which he had made them to rebuild the 
houses and i^rincipal manufactories. His reply 
was such as became a king, " You haA^e no need to 
thank me ; to relieve my subjects when bowed down 
by calamities, is my duty. That is what I am a 
king for." And he accounted for the rigid economy, 
on the observance of which he insisted in his palace, 
and throughout all the royal establishments, by 
urging that he required the money which was thus 
saved, to relieve the misfortunes of his subjects. 

As he grew old, he became sadly afflicted with 
the gout ; and the loss of his teeth debarred him 
from his favourite amusement of flute -playing. As 
long as he had strength he continued his yearly 
tours through his dominions, and his grand reviews, 
which, in August 1785, were attended by our own 
Duke of York, and a host of men of inferior rank ; 
and the last day but one of this military spectacle 
being very stormy, brought on an attack of fever, 
from which he never entirely recovered. A few 
weeks afterwards he had an apoplectic fit, and 
before the end of the year he showed symptoms of 
a confirmed dropsy. He sent for physicians from 
all quarters ; and among others, Zimmermann, at 
his earnest request, obtained permission from the 
Duke of York, to go from Hanover to Berlin to 
attend him. But no medical aid could be of any 
service to him. On the subject of diet he had been 

92 



260 THE LIFE OF FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

at all times intractable, and his obstinacy on this 
point increased with his disease. After very pro- 
tracted and severe suffering he died on the 17th 
of August, 1786, in the seventy-fifth year of his 
age, and the forty -sixth of his reign. He left no 
children ; indeed, it is generally believed that he 
had never, at any period of his life, lived with his 
wife at all. He treated her with uniform .courtesy, 
and spoke of her with invariable respect : occasion- 
ally he visited her for an hour or two at the palace 
at Schonhausen, which he assigned to her ; but his 
own abode at Sans Souci she never saw till after 
his death. He was succeeded by his nephew, 
Frederic William, to whom he bequeathed a king- 
dom the extent of which he had doubled, and the 
revenues of which he had trebled ; a treasury, in 
which he had accumulated a very large fund for 
future emergencies ; and an army, almost the most 
considerable in Europe in point of numbers ; cer- 
tainly the greatest of all, if regard be had to its 
discipline, ef&ciency, and reputation. In his will 
he directed himself to be buried among his favourite 
dogs, of which he had always had several, in the 
garden at Sans Souci. His successor with better 
feeling disregarded this injunction, and laid him in 
an appropriate tomb by the side of his father, in 
the garrison chapel at Potsdam, where the army, 
which they both loved so well, still offer up its 
prayers above the body of its founder and its hero. 



PHILIP OF MACEDON AND FREDERIC THE GREAT. 261 



PAKALLEL. 

There have not, in the whole history of the 
world, been many men distinguished by greater and 
more varied abilities, than either of the two sove- 
reigns of whose principal actions, and of whose 
characters, I have thus endeavoured to give some 
idea. Their achievements have placed both in a very 
high rank as warriors; both were successful states- 
men ; what is less usual in those whom the world 
commonly calls heroes, both were possessed in a 
very eminent degree, of that learning and of those 
accomplishments which are the embellishments of 
life, and qualify those who are endowed with them 
to be the ornaments of society. Their chief fault 
was likewise the same ; an ambitious desire of 
extending their dominions, without regard to the 
obstacles which justice or humanity interposed, and 
a consequent fondness for war, which when influ- 
encing the conduct of a sovereign, is the most 
disastrous of all passions to his subjects. 

The first war indeed, in which Philp was engaged, 
was purely defensive, and it may be that his success 
in that stimulated his military ardour, and prompted 
him to subsequent enterprises to be achieved hj the 



262 PHILIP OF MACEDON AND 

same means ; but tlie attacks upon iVmphipolis, tlie 
way in Avliicli lie overran the Chalcidic territory, 
and those which he waged for the ]3urpose of 
annexing the Tlu'acian provinces to his dominions, 
were all measures of unprovoked aggression, equalh' 
unjustifiable with the Prussian invasion of Silesia ; 
if the fact of the sovereign whom Frederic attacked 
having been a woman, did not make his act pecu- 
liary unchivalrous and unmanh^ while the deep 
obligations which he was ' under to her father, to 
whose remonstrances in his behalf he probably 
owed his life, stain it with the additional reproach 
of foul and almost unexampled ingratitude. 

The military skill with which they supported 
their unjust pretensions, was of a very high order. 
Neither of them was invincible ; neither of them 
is perhaps quite entitled to rank with the very 
greatest commanders of ancient and modern times ; 
with Hannibal, or Alexander, or Ceesar ; with Marl- 
borough, or Napoleon, or Wellington : but the 
defeat of Onomarchus and the victory of Chseronea, 
were great exploits, the glory of which was attri- 
butable solely to the courage and superior skill of 
Philip ; and the triumphs of Hohenfriedberg and 
of Leuthen, gained against most formidable odds, 
have established the fame of Frederic, as at least 
the first soldier of his age or of his country.'^- 

* The preceding pair of lives in this series have been those of 
Epaminondas and Gustavus Adolphus ; and it is singular with respect 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 263 

Philip never committed such errors as Frederic, 
who alone, probably, of great commanders, appears 
to have had no original genius for war, and who, 
not only in his first campaigns gave no promise of 
his future eminence, but even after long experi- 
ence, invited by his own rashness the surprise of 
Hochkirchen, and exposed Finch's division to the 
necessity of surrendering at Maxen: but, on the 
other hand, owing to the limited scale on which 
war in Greece was necessarily conducted, from the 
scanty population and narrow limits of the different 
states, Philip never displayed such ability in the 
plan and conduct of extensive operations, or such 
accuracy of combination, and never encountered 
such fearful odds, as Frederic repeatedly over- 
came. Nor were Chares, Charidemus, or Phocion, 
rivals near as formidable as the Austrian marshals, 
Daun, and Lacy, and Loudon, every one of whom, 
whether in the conduclr of a campaign, or in the 
tactics of a day of battle, was found in his turn to 
be far inferior to the decisive genius of Frederic. 

They had other points of resemblance as soldiers. 
Besides their active courage, promptness, and 
energy, which enabled them to avail themselves to 
the utmost of every advantage ; they were both 

to tlie present pair, that in all probability Philip actually learnt the 
principles of war from the one, while the picture of the other was the 
only ornament which Frederic allowed to be seen in his bedchamber 
at Sans Souci. 



264 PHILIP OF MACEDON AND 

largely endued with the still more valuable and 
rarer qualities of fortitude and perseverance under 
reverses. What Philip said of himself after one 
of his defeats, " that he only drew back like a 
battering-ram to give a heavier blow," was still 
more applicable to Frederic ; for the worst misfor- 
tunes of the Macedonian monarch never approached 
those of Kolin and Kunersdorf ; nor can the steadi- 
ness with which Philip retrieved his disasters on 
the Propontis and in Scythia, bear any comparison 
to the terrible energy with which Frederic consoled 
himself in the very same year, for his rout at 
Kolin, by the marvellous victories of Rosbach and of 
Leuthen. Both of them at times sought to lessen 
the miseries of war to individuals by acts of 
courtesy and humanit}^ Frederic's treatment of 
his French prisoners after Rosbach, and Philip's 
conduct to those Athenians who fell into his hands 
at Ch^ronea, would seem proofs of a native gene- 
rosity of disposition, which is the most amiable of 
all qualities in a conqueror, if the picture were 
not defaced by the cruel severity with which the 
one oppressed Saxony during his temporary pos- 
session of it, and the pitiless inhumanity with 
which the other sold his Theban enemies into 
slavery, and reduced the flourishing district around 
Olynthus to the condition of a depopulated desert. 
If we hesitate to impute their conduct in the last- 
named instances to a natural ferocity which delights 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 265 

in the infliction of suffering, at least it argues an 
indifference on the subject, which forbids us to attri- 
bute the opposite behaviour to an innate humanity ; 
and we are forced to conclude that, whether cruel 
or courteous, their only rule of action was policy 
and a regard to their own interest ; to be served at 
one time by conciliating, at another by terrifying 
their enemies. 

Both were able diplomatists, and skilful in 
winning over the rulers of other nations to adopt 
their own views. Philip is accused, indeed, of 
having owed no small share of his peaceful tri- 
umphs to the influence of money, and the extent 
to which he availed himself of such means has 
become proverbial ; it was an agent that Frederic 
also did not disdain, as in the case of the Due de 
Richelieu : but the favourite means of both sove- 
reigns were more honourable. Philip, on one 
occasion, showed that he was not afraid to oppose 
his own eloquence to the more practised rhetoric 
of the Athenian orators ; and we have seen that 
his art not only, on more than one occasion, coun- 
teracted the efforts of Demosthenes, but even 
baffled the acuteness of that great statesman him- 
self : while the address with which Frederic 
formed a league even from among the former allies 
of Austria, to prevent the success of her projects 
in Bavaria; and afterwards induced all the inferior 
States of Germany to unite in a confederacy to 



266 PHILIP OF MACEDON AND 

check any future encroachments on her part, is 
alone ample evidence of his possession of great 
diplomatic ability combined with great statesman- 
like acuteness and foresight. 

Again, as civil governors both Princes are en- 
titled to very high praise ; labouring for the in- 
ternal prosperit}^ of their respective countries, for 
the reform of abuses, and especially for the puri- 
fication of the courts of justice, with a correct 
appreciation of their duties as sovereigns. Here, 
too, the field for Frederic's exertions was the wider 
of the two, not only from the greater extent of 
his dominions, but because, if viewed with a due 
reference to the degree of enlightenment existing 
in Europe at each period, the state of Macedonia 
at the accession of Philip was far superior to that 
of Prussia when Frederic became its king : and, 
though we may neither approve of his overturning 
the well-considered legal decisions pronounced b}^ 
those who had made the law the study of their 
lives, nor of the violence with which he insulted the 
judges, whose sentence, after all, was, in more 
instances than one, more equitable than his own ; 
and though likewise we may also be of opinion 
that his endeavours to produce commercial pro- 
sperity would have been more successful if he had 
been less eager to take everj^thing into his own 
hands, and had trusted more to private enterprise 
and to the stimulus of competition ; yet, in his 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. S67 

reversal of his judges' decisions, he honestly be- 
lieved that he was shielding the poor from the 
tyranny of the rich, who were seeking immunity 
by undue and corrupt influence ; and if his political 
economy was faulty, we must remember that the 
principles of that science have never been as well 
understood on the Continent as in England. Nor 
should we withhold our v/arm approval from views 
of justice and humanity carried out with evident 
sincerity of purpose, because another country and 
a later age have attained to a better knowledge of 
the principles of action calculated to give such 
views their fullest effect. 

The rule acknowledged by both sovereigns was 
the same, that to labour for the benefit of their 
subjects was a duty imposed upon them by their 
situation ; Frederic professed it when he made 
answer to the deputies of Greiffenberg, that it was 
for the object of relieving the calamities of his 
people that he was what he was; and Philip owned 
the same truth even more forcibly when he sub- 
mitted to the rei^roof, that if he had no time to do 
justice, he had no time to be a king. 

It has been already said, that both were men of 
learning and eminent personal accomplishments ; 
but, in this respect-, the Macedonian has a great 
superiority over his rival, if not in his 'own abilities 
or his exercise of them, at least in the encourage- 
ment which he gave to learning 'in others, and in the 



268 PHILIP OF MACEDON AND 

the judiciousness of his efforts to promote educa- 
tion among his people. The wisest and ablest men 
of Greece found a welcome at the court of Pella ; 
but at that of Potsdam the native language of 
Prussia was proscribed. The capricious favour 
which Frederic did show to scholars, was reserved 
wholly for foreigners, and the treatment which even 
they experienced forms a not very favourable con- 
trast to the steady protection which was bestowed 
by Philip on Lysimachus, Aristotle, and the other 
learned men whom he had gathered around him. 
Great allowance should, no doubt, be made for 
Frederic, whose temper had been soured by the 
cruel treatment to which he had been subjected in 
his youth : in that respect Philip was more fortunate ; 
who, having early learnt lessons of wisdom and 
moderation from the example of some of the best 
and wisest men who ever did honour to the Greek 
nation, in the maturity of his manhood showed that 
he had not forgotten them. 

Both monarchs greatly increased the extent and 
resources of their respective nations. It was owing 
to the vigour and policy of Philip's reign, that his 
heroic son was able to traverse Asia, and hurl the 
Persian despot from his throne : it was the energy 
of Frederic's administration, and the greatly in- 
creased power which he left to his successors, that 
enabled his country in the succeeding generation to 
endure without utter extinction the defeats which 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 269 

she received from Napoleon and the iron despotism 
under which he bound her for a time, to renew the 
struggle at the first favourable opportunity, and at 
last to bear a share in the triumph which overthrew 
the tyrant, and restored peace to Europe. 

"We may not omit that Philip, on all occasions, 
testified his reverence for the religion of his country ; 
though sometimes he undoubtedly made his religious 
zeal a pretence for furthering his views of political 
aggrandisement : while Frederic, thpugh living 
when God had vouchsafed to the- world a purer 
light than was enjoyed by the heathen ruler, was an 
avowed scoffer and infidel, delighting to turn the 
holiest ceremonies into profane ridicule, and to 
encourage those above all others, who directed their 
fatal talents to the same unholy end. 

Looking at the wider sphere of action in which he 
moved, at the greater obstacles against which he 
successfully contended, at the brilliancy of some of 
his exploits, at his fortitude and fertility of resource 
when surrounded by the most imminent dangers 
and b}^ the most terrible disasters, we may probably 
pronounce that though both were great, yet Frederic 
was the greater king. Bemembering the unworthy 
pettiness of his conduct on many occasions, his 
faithlessness in friendship, his ingratitude, his 
irreligion, we may with less hesitation decide that 
Philip was the better man. 



LONDON : 
ERADBtTRT AND EVANS, PEINTERS, "WHITEFIIIASS. 



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